Chapter 710: A Match Destined to be Unfair to the Teaching Assistant
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 710: A Match Destined to be Unfair to the Teaching Assistant
Once I took my place on one side of the designated arena, the surrounding crowd instinctively retreated behind the boundary lines.
They left me ample space for the coming battle.
Opposite me, several figures stepped into the arena at that moment—a team of four.
In these matches, a Teaching Assistant’s opponents could be a lone wolf or a coordinated team. After "hunting" Teaching Assistants time and time again, the students understood clearly that a Teaching Assistant’s combat power was not something a single person could contend with.
Thus, teamwork had become the logical choice.
I didn't recognize any of the four members of this first team. Furthermore, they weren't students from the Witch Academy. Judging by their burly physiques and certain bestial traits, there was no doubt this team was composed of examinees from the Beast Academy.
Most likely, they were a composition of four Berserkers.
Are they trying to wear down my stamina right from the start?
I didn't particularly mind. My physical fitness was exceptional; even a war of attrition wouldn't be much of an issue. Instead, in this tense moment, my mind drifted to other matters.
If this was a trap set for me, what was the "one-hit kill" trump card hidden within it? What method could thoroughly kill me—something even a Resurrection Spell couldn't fix? And how would they bypass the reactions of the Mentors and strike me before the Transcendent Witches could intervene?
A string of questions plagued me, but they didn't hinder the current fight.
After the two sides exchanged brief pre-match pleasantries, a shout signaled the start, and the battle officially commenced.
The four orcs moved toward me with practiced coordination.
Heavy fists were imbued with "Fist Edge" granted by their skills, and the gauntlets on their hands transformed into ferocious weapons, attempting to suppress me with raw violence.
I adopted a conservative stance, opening up distance and using the method mages excelled at: spell suppression.
The Fireball Spell packed significantly more punch than the orcs' skills, but it required a cast time. To maximize its power, it even needed to be charged. The orcs' attacks, however, had no such "sluggish" preparation time; their bodies were their most powerful and convenient weapons.
Currently, the only spells I could use for basic combat response were the Fireball Spell and the Ice Shield. I used the Gale Spell as a guarantee to maintain distance while being suppressed by the four of them, preventing myself from being dragged into a melee brawl.
Furthermore, this distance advantage needed to be paired with the crowd control of Plant Entanglement to yield significant results.
However, because of the synergy required between skills and the rigid cast times, the rules of the match infinitely magnified the advantage of a multi-person team. If I released a skill against one person, I still had three others to defend against.
Therefore, if I wanted to gain the upper hand, I had to achieve a crushing lead from outside the framework of standard skills.
Reaction, anticipation, rhythm control...
And... the moment the opponent made a mistake.
When the upper limit of a battle is fixed, then in an evenly matched fight, rather than praying for an extraordinary performance from yourself, it is better to pray for a flaw in the opponent.
No human can be perfect, and that included me. I could have a limb pierced by an arrow due to a moment of carelessness, just as an opponent’s brain might fail to keep up with their body’s reactions during the heat of battle.
Thus, facing these four orcs, my strategy was to wait for them to slip up.
After all, all four were melee-focused orcs—a group that pushed a single advantage to its extreme. I wasn't about to go head-to-head with them by force. There was no benefit in such bravado.
After a prolonged period of attrition, I finally caught a flaw in their coordination. Tanking a hit with Stone Skin, I forcibly traded blows to take down one of the orcs.
Upon killing that orc, my kill count reached the threshold to unlock the eighth skill tree.
However, the eighth skill was an area-of-effect spell: Hailstorm.
In a match with a restricted arena and no teammates to cover me, it would be difficult to cast. After seeing its cast time, I decisively abandoned the idea of using it, choosing instead to focus on the remaining three orcs.
With one of their companions gone, the pressure on me decreased significantly as their lockdown on my movements faltered. I could see that their combat rhythm had become somewhat disjointed.
More importantly, the impact the loss had on their emotions was beyond my expectations. It seemed that even if these four weren't quadruplets, they were likely the type who constantly referred to each other as brothers.
Seeing them become so emotional, I felt at ease.
However, after I dealt with another one, leaving only two, I found that the coordination between the remaining pair seemed to become even more seamless—vaguely more troublesome than when there were three.
But in the end, two people couldn't provide the same pressure as four. Especially when the opponent no longer had a significant numerical advantage, my superiority in speed and melee techniques began to shine.
The previous rhythm of kiting was replaced by a frenzied counterattack the moment they tried their hardest to close the gap! This sudden shift in combat style caught them completely off guard.
Furthermore, once they were down to two, I discovered that wounding one was more advantageous than killing them outright. An injured person could become a burden to the other; their divided attention, coordination issues, and mistakes all served to lighten the pressure of the fight.
As expected, I finished off the last two in short order.
As I claimed victory, a cheer erupted from the spectators at the edge of the field!
This was a one-versus-four!
Before this match, other Teaching Assistants had undergone similar battles. Although most were victorious, some looked pathetic, some made it look easy, and others were dragged into long wars of attrition...
But for the audience, a visually spectacular battle was what they craved most!
Though this competition was informal, its popularity was undeniable. Only those with sufficient strength were qualified to stand at the front for the best view; the weak were pushed to the back, unable to even see the hem of the combatants' clothes.
And those most confident in their own strength... they disdained being mere spectators. They wanted to be the ones surrounded by the crowd like stars around the moon!
As the "first to eat the crab," the first match against a Teaching Assistant was almost a guaranteed loss—this was the pattern the crowd had summarized from the previous matches. As the number of matches increased, more people would eagerly jump in to try and "pick up the scraps," since a direct kill on a Teaching Assistant was the best way to earn points and glory!
But as for me...
I was the most unique among the Teaching Assistants. I lacked their Immortality. That was why my first match was packed with people—all of them experts confident that they were not weaker than their opponent.
This was also why so many were willing to applaud after my first victory. In their eyes, given my strength, even if I lost in the second round of this gauntlet, as long as it wasn't a humiliating defeat, no one would talk much trash.
Because I held a title that many were starting to overlook: if you set aside my status as a Teaching Assistant, I was also a low-level student just like them!
Now that all my powers were sealed, the things people constantly mentioned—my number of Mana Sources, powerful spellbooks, overloaded spellbooks, and even Great Spellbooks—were all gone.
Using the same level of power to fight and defeat multiple opponents of the same tier... what could be more inspiring than that?
As I stood victorious, the Teaching Assistants at other arenas or those waiting in rotation felt their expressions tighten. After all, many of them had participated in that previous encirclement against me. My strength was "certified" in their eyes.
But then, as if thinking of something else, their tense expressions relaxed.
After all... this was a competition designed against the Teaching Assistants. Death was an ending every Teaching Assistant had to face; it was merely a matter of who went first.
At that moment, the "corpses" of the four orcs I had killed were carried away by the crowd. Though they were the losers, the low-level students who had the courage to step up and fight a Teaching Assistant were still respected. Thus, their bodies were carried away with dignity rather than being dragged.
This crude competition might be irregular and even a bit ridiculous, but with the Resurrection Mentors cooperating, it was enough to be used as a gimmick for promotion. The Mentors who used to revive examinees on the spot were now waiting at a specialized resurrection area for the bodies to be delivered.
I looked at the blood splattered across the arena. The air was thick with the scent of iron, a smell that only added a layer of cruelty to the battle. Perhaps... this was the "river of blood" those troublemakers said they were looking forward to.
For an ordinary person, such a battle might cause both physiological and psychological discomfort—an instinctive fear and loathing born from life's reaction to the "manipulation of death."
But now, I had no time to mourn the four lives that had just passed, for my gauntlet was far from over.
A new team of enemies arrived opposite me!
And this time, my opponents had increased from four to five. A five-man combat squad!
They weren't giving me a single moment to catch my breath.
I let out a soft chuckle, my gaze sweeping over the five people to confirm they were indeed my second-round opponents.
In that first battle, I had fully utilized the advantages of my Body Cultivation Five Senses. That fight had also given me a different kind of insight—or rather, every previous battle had given me insights, but they had coalesced into a single, understood inspiration during that last fight.
Any transcendent power system has a corresponding framework and transcendent support. Body Cultivation is no exception; a Body Cultivation framework without transcendent support is nothing more than physical exercise.
But I had started with a self-awakened Body Cultivation.
So, what was Body Cultivation without transcendent power? It was the most basic physical strength and Five Senses perception—the very power I had been cultivating all along.
My cultivation of Body Cultivation power was actually quite disjointed. Because I hadn't followed the conventional path of training through body arts, I lacked extensive physical conditioning. Instead, under Sister Bai's suggestion, I had embarked on the path of the Five Senses.
The cultivation of the Five Senses itself did not involve the intervention of transcendent power. This method was essentially about "accumulating deeply to break out thinly"—once one ascended to the transcendent level, the intervention of transcendent energy would instantly propel them to a higher tier.
Sister Bai followed a similar form; after ascending to the transcendent level, she self-generated Heart Sense, which in turn derived a Heart State Domain, allowing her to leap into the Saint Realm.
However, my sixth sense, Heart Sense, had been realized prematurely. Through a stroke of luck, it had linked with two Great Spellbooks, prematurely involving the energy of the Great Space Technique's void rifts to derive a Heart State Domain.
Now, with all my transcendent powers sealed, my sixth sense had returned to its original, non-transcendent state. It was a strange sensation, like returning to one's essence.
It was a very novel experience. Much like death, if one does not experience certain things, one can never truly grasp the insights within.
Suddenly... I began to understand why such a bizarre spell as "Self-Sealing" existed in the world. When I first learned this sealing art from Sister Natalie, I had only learned the consciousness seal to construct the consciousness firewall for the Tree of Great Knowledge.
Looking at it now, if I had the chance, I should study this Self-Sealing art more thoroughly. I remembered Sister Natalie saying that the broad category of Self-Sealing arts seemed to have been promoted and perfected by a certain Truth Witch. As expected... the Truth Witches really did have a lot of good stuff.
Those who haven't reached a certain level or realized certain truths cannot even comprehend the intent behind their actions.
And now... I looked at the five people before me. Even before the fight began, through my Heart Sense, I could feel their intense battle intent and a hint of impatient greed. It was as if they were certain they had me, already fantasizing about the wonderful scenario of five people splitting a hundred points.
With a simple command to start the battle, the five of them assumed their combat stances. They didn't share the same profession; rather, they were a hunting group with clearly defined roles.
This was a complementary multi-person coordination, diametrically opposed to the previous battle. While it was hard to say which was superior, it was clear that in this second match, the blatant confidence of these five gave them a massive boost in combat power.
Moreover, their fighting style wasn't as mindless as the orcs'. The impact of combat errors wouldn't be enough for me to take advantage easily. This was the strength of a complementary team—it significantly raised the group's combat floor.
In the previous battle, their extreme specialization had raised their combat ceiling. Therefore, the pressure this second match put on me far exceeded the first!
Passively waiting for them to make a coordination error was unwise; it would only increase my stamina consumption. If I were to make a mistake myself, it would lead to total disaster.
Thus, I had to change my approach for this fight: shift from passively waiting for a flaw to actively guiding the opponent into revealing one.
It was an extremely dangerous decision, but one worth trying.
And as for how to guide them into a flaw...
Naturally, it was to reveal a flaw of my own when the opponent's perspective was most unfavorable, baiting them into acting impulsively. Once they became eager for quick success, the likelihood of them exposing a flaw would increase.
Of course, the danger to me would also double.
Just as I used a flaw to bait the opponent into a heavy assault, the "healer/support" Holy Angel on their team—due to the urgency of the main attackers—exposed a position where they couldn't retreat in time.
The Fireball I had been charging suddenly shifted targets. Despite the charging stance, I bypassed the main attackers entirely. What met them instead was the tiny window of time bought by a triggered Plant Entanglement.
After using Stone Skin and Body Cultivation melee techniques to repel the obstacles, I followed my own rhythm, preparing to heavily wound the backline Holy Angel.
"Hmm? A Wizard?"
Just as I was wary of the Wizard in the backline hitting me with a curse, the opponent chose self-preservation, allowing me to strike the Holy Angel.
A personal grudge? Or... a trap?
In the blink of an eye, I had my answer.
It was a trap.
They were sacrificing the Holy Angel as bait to force an encirclement. Aside from the repelled attacker and the bait, two others surged with power at this moment, as if they had finally caught their chance.
But my gaze had already shifted away from the encirclement. I realized that the Wizard, whom I hadn't paid much attention to and who had a very low sense of existence... actually had a problem.
Originally, I hadn't intended to use Spirit Vision to take shortcuts, wanting to purely hone my combat skills. But my Spirit Vision instinctively captured abnormal information coming from that Wizard!