Melodia reached out to smooth the wrinkles in Li Fei's robe. Li Fei straightened Annesia's collar, and Annesia plucked a black hair, playing hide-and-seek, out of Melodia's golden locks.
"Li Fei, the outer-ring rules work heavily in your favor. As long as you stay careful at night, you should be able to stand out."
"Annesia, don't be too kind."
"If you can, look after each other," Melodia added before leaving.
Clearly, the blonde teacher had already guessed that Li Fei's ambitions weren't confined to the Third-Tier Altar. She meant to push into the inner ring of Black Doom Island with a low-Sequence body and seize the Fourth-Tier Altar, snatching food from the tiger's mouth.
Both that parting request and last night's sparring match with Annesia had been a kind of breaking-in. She hoped the two of them would develop some tacit understanding in the inner ring.
Seeing the two little mage-girls nod in unison, the blonde teacher said no more. She pushed open the door and stepped into the purple dawn.
*
Purple light spilled from the vault of the sky. Thousands of young mages had gathered in a vast square, radiating vibrant mana.
Most of them were fairly quiet, with only the occasional whisper drifting over.
"Xavier, interested in teaming up?"
"Watch out for that Gorgon. Even here at the Main Academy, she might dare to kill!"
"Look, those two from Loxibrook."
"So beautiful… what a pity."
Li Fei frowned slightly. Something was off.
Objectively speaking, with her charm, even proud young mages would set aside their reserve and come over to chat at least a little. Yet she had been standing here for nearly half an hour, and not a single person had tried to chat her up. Worse, she noticed that besides the expected awe, eagerness, and even greed, something else flickered in the mages' eyes… pity and hostility?
It reminded her of the "legacy issue" the blonde teacher had mentioned, and her heart sank.
"All students, please collect your badges. In twenty minutes, you will enter Folded Space B-01 in groups."
The gentle voice was carried to every student's ears by mana. Then dozens of Main Academy teachers filed in, handing each student a purple badge and explaining its function.
Crush the badge, and you would be pulled out of Black Doom Island at once.
If a student saw something unnamable in the inner ring and fell into madness, the badge would sense it and extract the addled student too.
The teachers placed the badges into the students' hands themselves, along with a word or two of encouragement, such as "Be extremely careful."
After all, even though Black Doom Island forbade killing fellow students and had protective measures that looked very reliable, experience showed that every time Folded Space B-01 opened, some students died by accident. Some were buried by the environment, others killed in the rivalry among classmates, and the death rate wasn't low.
If the cause was the latter, grief-stricken relatives might turn up and move heaven and earth to find the killer and take revenge. Just as strictly law-abiding Loxibrook always left a back door open for a certain Top Courtesan, even an ancient and powerful organization like the Magic Academy had rules that weren't airtight.
Of course, the Main Academy was perfectly capable of bringing the death rate down to zero. It only had to assign a few high-Sequence mages to watch the students' every move and fish them out at the first sign of danger.
But a zero death rate would turn the trial into a joke, stripping it of any sense of urgency.
A badge to save your life, classmates who didn't dare kill lightly, advance knowledge of the island's rules and risks, teachers warning you again and again to stay safe… if you still died after all that, then so be it. Let the precious teaching resources go to someone more worth cultivating.
"Here are your badges. Please keep them safe."
A teacher with flowing long hair and an elegant, graceful air handed purple badges to Li Fei and Annesia.
Her eyes were smiling, her voice soft and gentle, with a scholarly poise about her.
As Li Fei took the badge, she suddenly asked:
"Nicole… how is she?"
"Ah, the Dean is very well."
Li Fei answered demurely.
From what Melodia had let slip between the lines, Li Fei had already worked out that Irena and Nicole seemed to have left behind some emotional debts here. So the "Mom" and "Sis" she usually had on the tip of her tongue were decisively swapped for "the Dean," to keep her distance and avoid having her reputation dragged down.
"Aren't you her daughter? Why so formal?"
The gentle, refined teacher's smile turned gloomy.
Li Fei's heart lurched.
Had she just run into the gray-haired archmage's "local wife"?
She knew this was no time to panic. Her lashes fluttered, and with superb acting she let a look of faint bewilderment and delight cross her face, reaching out to catch the teacher's arm.
"May I ask what I should call you?"
"Xuelan."
"I knew it…" Li Fei murmured.
"Have you heard my name before, Spell Encyclopedia Lady?"
Xuelan stepped half a pace closer, her gloomy smile now right up against Li Fei's face.
"The truth is, quite a few outstanding women at Loxibrook have pursued Mom Nicole, yet she's always stayed single."
A look of dawning understanding crossed Li Fei's face. "I always thought she was just absorbed in paperwork and spells. But once, she was staring out the window and didn't even notice me walk into the Dean's office. I heard Mom Nicole say something to the window. It was too quiet to make out, but it sounded like the name 'Xuelan'…"
She looked up, eyes sparkling. "Teacher Xuelan, are you and Mom Nicole very close?"
"M-me and Nicole, it's nothing really, we're just ordinary friends… Never mind that for now."
The gloom vanished from Xuelan's face, replaced by a trace of shyness in her eyes.
She eagerly laid a hand on Li Fei's shoulder and looked the slender girl up and down as if she'd found a daughter lost for many years. Worry colored her voice.
"Why do you look so terrible?"
"My soul-damage aftereffects are acting up."
Having lost an average of three liters of water an hour while lengthening her tail last night, Li Fei gave a faint smile. "It's nothing, I'm used to it."
"What is Nicole thinking? Doesn't she know to prepare more potions for you?"
Xuelan scolded lightly, then glanced at Annesia and warned, "You two must be careful once you're inside. Especially you, Li Fei. Don't trust the other students easily. You'll be the rival they're watching most closely."
"Why?"
Li Fei hurriedly asked.
"The Silver Brooch is an honor. The Gold Brooch is a greater honor, and only the mages with the most outstanding aptitude are qualified to bear it," Xuelan explained.
"Back in their hometowns, these students are rare geniuses, dazzling and admired by all. They rarely lose when fighting opponents of the same Sequence, and some can even defeat enemies of higher Sequence."
"So although the rules technically allow a Sequence 7 student to contest the Fourth-Tier Altar, actually achieving that means getting past a crowd of gifted, higher-Sequence, fiercely proud competitors. The difficulty is immense, and the hope is slim."
"In the last few thousand years, the students who managed it could be counted on one hand… and three of them came from the Loxibrook Branch Academy."
"Oh, come on."
Li Fei guessed the answer, and her expression went stiff. "Nicole, Irena, Selene."
"Exactly."
Xuelan sighed fondly. "The brilliance of Nicole's youth has been buried by the years, but I think many people still remember vividly the sight of the Twin Stars lighting up Black Doom Island."
"After all, that happened the last time it opened, and not that many years have passed."
"For a Sequence 7 student to take the Fourth-Tier Altar… in a small sense, it's a disgrace and a sorrow for all the mid-Sequence students. Proud young prodigies reduced to stepping stones, left looking up at the backs of younger junior sisters charging ahead. In a larger sense, whoever wins the altar also brings glory to their alma mater. For teachers with a sense of collective honor, when a student from their own Branch Academy stands out, they share in the glory, and when their students lose, they feel the loss too."
"But whatever the case, the teachers and students of the other Branch Academies will never allow the 'Twin Stars miracle' to be repeated after just a few years. It would not only be humiliating, but they'd also have to face the wrath of their own Branch Deans. After all, if the Loxibrook Branch Academy produced remarkable results in such an important trial twice in a row, it would have some effect on how the Main Academy tilts its teaching resources and evaluates each Dean's performance."
Xuelan sighed and said plaintively:
"In fact, after the Twin Stars rose on Black Doom Island, the Main Academy wanted to transfer Nicole here to run its central hub, but she said she couldn't bear to leave Loxibrook's teachers and students…"
—Something to do with the Dean's performance review? Damn it, so that's why the black-hearted Dean volunteered to apply for my [Divine Scion] visit slot in two years! She was plainly nudging me to give up the [Divine Scion] for now and enter Folded Space B-01 instead… So I risk my neck while she sits back and waits for her performance bonus to roll in? Damn it!
—And Miss Irena and Miss Selene, too. They got me targeted, and I'm putting that on their tab.
Now that she'd fully worked out what Melodia's "legacy issue" really was, Li Fei puffed out her cheeks.
The white-haired beauty beside her patted her shoulder in comfort.
Annesia was bound to get caught in the fallout and become a target as well, but compared to Li Fei, Li Fei was clearly the biggest "victim."
"Anyway, better safe than sorry."
Faced with the aggrieved, fretting girl, Xuelan gave her a look of sympathetic helplessness, offered that one line of comfort, and made to leave.
"Wait, Teacher Xuelan, um…"
Li Fei suddenly spoke up to keep her there. "I wanted to ask: if I do some damage to the environment and ecology of Folded Space B-01, does that count as a violation?"
"Don't worry."
Xuelan answered without hesitation. "B-01 may be an extremely small folded plane, but it isn't something that can be destroyed with ease…"
"What if, and I'm just saying what if, the damage I cause is pretty big? Would that be fine too?"
Li Fei pressed.
"I find it hard to imagine how a young low-Sequence mage, limited in the quality of her items and gear and forbidden any 'outside assistance,' could cause much damage… but I can tell you this for certain."
Xuelan's smile faded and she answered seriously. "As long as the rules don't forbid it, you may do anything. The first clever student to find a loophole deserves the reward of exploiting it once. Afterward, the Main Academy will patch the loophole so that no one else can copy it."
"So as long as you haven't broken the rules, the Main Academy won't pursue the matter no matter what the result. At most, it will add a new rule afterward."
She paused, and the smile she had just put away returned:
"In a way, forcing the Main Academy to amend its rules for you is also a mark of ability."
"For example, after Nicole came through, the Main Academy added a rule banning all extortion and threats. Then there's Irena, for whom the Main Academy drew up a regulation against auctioning off altar ownership. And Selene made them add a rule forbidding… relationships with female students inside B-01. The funny thing is, your senior even used an alias, 'Aurora,' and kept insisting, 'It's Selene who has a girlfriend, what does that have to do with me, Aurora?'"
—So this is the glorious tradition handed down through the Loxibrook Branch Academy?
Annesia blushed, while Li Fei pondered, deciding she couldn't let those women hog all the glory.
With a light laugh and a farewell, Xuelan glided away.
Li Fei calmly felt the wary, sharp-edged gazes from every direction, her expression untroubled.
There was no doubt this trial would be harder than she'd imagined.
But since the Main Academy favored students who were "bold yet careful" and "good at spotting loopholes and first to take the plunge"…
Li Fei touched her spatial ring, her eyes deep and dark.
"Low-Sequence students, please follow the teachers' instructions and enter the portal in an orderly manner. Mid-Sequence students, please wait a little longer. Low-Sequence students, please follow…"
The gentle female voice sounded again. Not far away, a huge dragon head let out a faint, almost imagined roar, and rolling plumes of mana smoke surged skyward from its black, hollow eye sockets.
"See you later."
Li Fei's lips curved. She strode to the front of the line first and stepped into the dragon's gaping maw. Weightlessness swept over her body, and her eyes were filled with dizzying, kaleidoscopic color.
A moment later, she arrived at the place where the gray-haired archmage and the Twin Stars had once shone.
It was a sunlit island of lovely scenery. The sky was washed a clear blue, the sea stretched calm and limpid to the horizon, the wind carried soft waves to her ears, and even the island's grass and trees rustled gently.
Everything was so peaceful and lovely that it was hard to imagine over a thousand prodigies of the Magic Academy were about to wage a battle royale on this lonely island.
Li Fei cautiously looked around and saw no other students. Evidently the dragon-head portal randomly scattered arrival points to keep the students from clustering together and brawling the moment they landed. That was good news for the Spell Encyclopedia Lady, or she would surely have become a target for concentrated fire.
"Let me check out the terrain first…"
Li Fei muttered and opened her palm. A Flying Broom smacked into it at once. She mounted it, and her viewpoint rose until the whole island lay spread beneath her.
The island wasn't very large, and its depths and outskirts were sharply and strikingly different.
The outermost edge was ringed by a thin band of golden sand, like a silk ribbon. Beside the beach, vegetation grew thick, with towering ancient trees whose lush branches and leaves joined into a continuous forest.
At the center of the island, encircled by the dense woods, rose a range of tall, rugged mountains, with thin mist shrouding the highest peak.
"What the hell is that…"
Li Fei's gaze stopped on the highest peak, and her voice trembled.
A gigantic skeleton, a thousand zhang tall, leaned its back against the mountain, its feet planted on the earth and its head resting on the summit.
A rusted greatsword pierced its breastbone, pinning it firmly to the mountainside.
Through the rising clouds and steam, Li Fei could faintly see the enormous skull tilted back, its empty sockets staring straight at the heavens. Its jaws hung open. Though it made no sound, Li Fei clearly heard a roar.
The sword's master had long since vanished, leaving only a cold skeleton, untouched by time, sleeping here for eternity.
____
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