(A/N: If you want daily chaps then keep giving me powerstones!)
...
{3rd Pov}
It was the next day.
When she was greeted by her teammates—especially Zu Xingyi—she couldn't stop the memory of the Star Emperor's warning from replaying in her mind over and over.
The words she had tried to ignore resurfaced the moment she saw their faces.
She didn't want to believe it—didn't want to accept the possibility that the people she considered friends, the teammates she trusted and fought alongside, would someday betray her.
It felt absurd and cruel to even imagine.
Qin Yu'er tried to push those thoughts out of her head.
She wanted to deny the Star Emperor's words as nothing more than manipulation.
Yet when she tried to convince herself of that, one undeniable fact lingered in her mind:
What reason would an Emperor have to lie to her?
He had nothing to gain from deceiving someone like her, someone so much weaker.
That single truth made her doubt her earlier certainty.
It made her question whether the betrayal he spoke of was really as impossible as she desired it to be.
'Even if people fear me,' she tried to console herself, 'there is no way they would do something truly terrible to me. At worst… they would isolate me from others to prevent accidents. To make sure I don't harm anyone.'
She repeated that thought again and again in her mind, as if reassurance alone could change fate.
Zu Xingyi quickly noticed that Qin Yu'er seemed far more distant than she had been the day before, and he couldn't understand why.
He kept stealing glances at her, secretly racking his brain for answers and silently blaming all the psychology books he had read the previous night for failing him now.
Soon after, the team boarded a boat headed for Japan.
A few days later, they were already standing before Japan's Defensive Team, preparing for the National Defense Token challenge.
Each country possessed a National Defense Token, and its value or difficulty was determined by the country's performance in the previous World Tournament.
The better their previous ranking, the more the value was of that token.
To pass the preliminaries, every country needed to challenge and defeat the Defensive Team of another country.
These Defensive Teams were typically weaker than the main national teams that would go on to participate in the actual World Tournament.
Their purpose was simply to serve as obstacles for those who wished to qualify.
Only after obtaining a token could a team advance further in the competition.
Obtaining the token of a strong country—or collecting multiple tokens from weaker countries—was the deciding factor for clearing the preliminaries.
The teams with the highest number of tokens would advance to the actual World Tournament stage.
China chose Japan as their first target for several reasons.
Beyond the historical hostility and political aggression that had long existed between the two nations, the Japanese Defensive Team occupied a very particular tier in the global rankings.
They weren't weak enough to be dismissed outright, yet they weren't so powerful that defeating them would be unrealistic.
Compared to teams from Europe, the Japanese side was considered weaker overall.
And since a Defensive Team was always weaker than the nation's main tournament team, China judged it as a favorable matchup—difficult enough to earn prestige, but not so difficult as to risk immediate elimination.
Securing Japan's token would not only boost China's morale, but would also display their superiority over other countries that chose to secure their first tokens from clearly weaker nations.
It was a strategic move meant to impress, to intimidate, and to signal that China intended to climb higher than their previous disappointing rankings.
The moment the Chinese National Team and the Japanese Defensive Team faced each other, the insults began flying almost immediately.
The Chinese side was the first to throw verbal attacks—particularly one member who seemed to have a personal grudge against someone on the Japanese team.
Provoked, the Japanese Defensive Team didn't stay silent for long.
They began hurling insults back one after another, escalating the tension as both sides tried to assert dominance before the match had even started.
Eventually, a teacher from the Japanese side stepped in and reprimanded his students, forcing them to calm down.
However, to the Chinese team, the gesture looked laughable—like a shallow attempt to avoid being blamed for provoking conflict.
Qin Yu'er could only sigh to herself.
It was their first opponent, their first country in the preliminaries, and already the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
In the end, to avoid dragging the confrontation out too long, both sides agreed to settle things with a one-on-one match format, the simplest and most straightforward method for determining the winner.
The first person to step forward from the Chinese team was the same guy who had been hurling the loudest insults earlier.
Without a shred of suspense, he was cleanly defeated by the Japanese side within just a few moves.
Several eyebrows twitched on the Chinese side as they watched their all-talk-no-show teammate get flattened so easily.
The humiliation was so sharp it felt like a collective face-slap powerful enough to be remembered for nine generations.
It wasn't even surprising, if one considered the context.
The Japanese teams were trained to fight Sea Monsters starting from their third year of high school, giving them battle experience far beyond what most Chinese students possessed.
This was due to Japan's unique geography and circumstances.
As an island nation, it was attacked by Sea Monsters on a near-daily basis.
And while Japan's human population was large, it still suffered—just like every country—from a shortage of sufficient mages and resources.
Because of that, the Japanese had trained far more aggressively than most countries to compensate.
So to compensate for their shortage of high-level mages, Japan deployed Primary (Novice) Mages straight out of high school as support troops in their constant battles against Sea Monsters.
Through these battles, they acquired a huge amount of natural resources from the ocean and from the corpses of Sea Monsters—resources that they later traded with allied nations for what they lacked in other areas.
Their soldiers, students, and even novice mages grew up knowing that real combat wasn't optional—it was survival.
Because of this unique environment, Japan developed a very different perspective on elemental value compared to China.
Water Element awakening at Novice Tier was considered superior to Fire Element, which was the opposite of China's traditional elemental hierarchy.
In addition, Lightning Element held even greater strategic value than rare specialties such as Summoning or Curse at the Primary stage.
The reason was simple:
—Fire Element was nearly useless against Water-type Sea Monsters in the early stages.
—Water Element could at least contend with them and provide crowd control or battlefield adaptation.
—Lightning Element, however, absolutely annihilated Water-type monsters at the Primary stage due to elemental superiority and damage scale.
Thus, Japanese combat doctrine favored Water and Lightning extremely highly, while Fire—despite its popularity in China—was practically considered trash at the early tiers when facing their primary enemies.
Now that the Chinese Team had already lost their first match, everyone exchanged uneasy looks filled with worry and confusion.
The atmosphere shifted quickly from arrogance to tension.
"I will go," Zu Xingyi declared.
Part of his motivation was to show off in front of Qin Yu'er and earn praise from his teammates by winning.
But he also genuinely disliked the Japanese team and wanted to vent his frustrations on the battlefield.
The Team Captain agreed to let him fight.
After all, among the remaining members, Zu Xingyi was considered one of their strongest picks—an Advanced Mage whose Curse Element served as his High-Tier Element.
In addition to that, he possessed Wind and Fire Elements at Intermediate Tier, giving him multiple options in combat.
Once Zu Xingyi entered the battlefield, the Japanese side—now feeling bold after their first victory—sent out another Intermediate Mage.
However, Zu Xingyi easily overwhelmed his opponent using only Wind and Fire, without ever needing to reveal his Curse Element, which was his true trump card.
The victory evened the score and helped restore some of the team's confidence, at least temporarily.
Finally taking things seriously, the Japanese team sent out their strongest Defender—an Intermediate Mage possessing two Peak Elements: Lightning and Water, both at Spirit Grade.
Under normal circumstances, a talent of that level should have easily secured a position in the Main National Team, but due to his lack of connections and background, he was denied the opportunity.
As a result, he ended up serving only as the leader of the Defensive Team.
For this decisive match, Qin Yu'er stepped forward.
The moment the battle began… it also ended.
Within just a few seconds, the Japanese team's strongest Defender was frozen solid, along with the entire arena, encased in a thick layer of ice from a single move.
The contrast between the Japanese expectations and the actual result was so drastic that for a moment, nobody spoke.
Qin Yu'er immediately realized she had exposed far more power than she intended to.
Her expression tightened slightly, as she had hoped to stay low-key.
But it was already too late—everyone had seen it.
After a brief stunned silence, the Chinese team erupted into cheers, completely overwhelmed by her overwhelming display of strength.
The Japanese team roared in outrage.
"Impossible! She must have cheated!" one of the Japanese members shouted angrily, pointing at the frozen arena as if refusing to believe what he had just witnessed.
"She's a High-Tier Mage," Qin Yu'er's female teammate snorted back.
While it sounded like praise, the intent behind it was anything but harmless.
By doing so, she openly revealed Qin Yu'er's true cultivation level—information that would allow the Japanese National Team to prepare counter-strategies specifically against her.
It ensured she would no longer be treated as just another participant, but as a priority threat on their tactical board.
The Japanese Defensive Team was forced to shut up after that.
Even if they were furious, they had no legitimate grounds to accuse Qin Yu'er of cheating anymore—her sheer strength explained everything.
Meanwhile, several Japanese instructors could only complain silently in their hearts.
'How can China have two High-Tier Mages at the very start of the preliminaries?'
It was an absurd level of manpower compared to what most countries were fielding at this stage, and far beyond the norm for a nation that had been underperforming for multiple tournaments.
However, the Sensei of the Japanese Team, the eldest among them, didn't share the excitement or the outrage of his students. Instead, he frowned deeply.
'One-Thought Star Nebula?' he murmured internally, his expression tightening as he recognized the significance.
He knew exactly how terrifying such a feat was, and he immediately wondered whether it was Qin Yu'er's innate talent rather than cultivated skill.
To the untrained eye, her casting had looked instantaneous—just a flash of light and frozen destruction—but to someone who had lived long enough and seen enough geniuses, that single instant revealed far more.
Each succeeding Tier of a Mage's Cultivation required a specific Formation of Stars before a spell could be utilized at all:
—At Novice Tier, it was called the Star Track, consisting of 7 Stars aligned.
—At Intermediate Tier, it was the Star Constellation, made from 7 aligned Star Tracks.
—At Advanced Tier, it became the Star Nebula, formed by 7 aligned Star Constellations.
The difficulty of arranging each successive formation grew manifold, to the point that even talented mages required preparation and time to cast spells.
This was why magic casting took time—why battles between mages involved delays between each spell.
Formations had to be built, stars aligned, and the mage's spiritual sea engaged.
But Qin Yu'er had released an Advanced Tier attack using a Star Nebula in the time it took most people to blink.
That was not normal cultivation, nor was it ordinary talent.
It was the mark of someone capable of One-Thought Nebula Casting, a monstrous ability that compressed an entire Star Nebula into a single instant of will.
Now, while the innate talent of One-Thought Star Track was rare, it was not impossible.
Such a talent helped with the initial and instantaneous alignment of Star Tracks, allowing a mage to reduce casting time significantly at the Novice Tier.
However, the innate talent of One-Thought Star Constellation was extremely rare, to the point that only a handful of individuals across the nation had ever demonstrated it.
But the innate talent of One-Thought Star Nebula?
That was on an entirely different level.
Even in Japan, there were only a few recorded cases, and for the past ten years, not a single mage had been born with such an ability.
It was the kind of talent that only appeared once in a generation—if that.
The Sensei immediately recognized that the spell Qin Yu'er used was a High-Tier Ice spell.
But if she truly possessed such a monstrous innate talent, why didn't she use it on her other element?
Why didn't she simply rely on her Intermediate Elements to secure victory instantly?
Just using instantaneous casting with Intermediate Tier spells would have been more than enough to defeat her opponent.
Revealing an Advanced Tier Ice Element, and worse—revealing such a frightening casting speed—had no tactical advantage at all.
It made no sense.
Unless… it was deliberate.
Unless she wanted to warn the Japanese Team, or deter them before the real matches.
After all, they were Chinese.
Ahem.
Qin Yu'er, of course, had no idea that suspicion had already begun to form around her.
She was unaware that several people were already analyzing her actions and that the truth behind her identity and abilities wouldn't stay hidden for long.
It was only a matter of time before her true nature was exposed.
...
"Uncle, one more bowl of ramen, please!" Astreo called out as he finished his first bowl in record time.
Beside him, Xyra sat quietly, observing Astreo eat with a serene smile on her face.
Her two dragon horns were completely concealed by the amulet's power, and since she wasn't releasing even a trace of her Emperor-level aura, no one in the shop had the slightest idea that a literal Emperor-level being was sitting casually in a small ramen restaurant in Japan.
[Xyra Image]
Astreo's eyes sparkled as he stared at the steaming noodles, already wondering what dish he should try next.
His mouth watered as his mind raced through the options.
Yes—Astreo had been following the Chinese National Team, and since they were traveling around the world, he decided he might as well treat this as a mini-vacation until Qin Yu'er's real identity was inevitably exposed.
After all, one of the things any sane person would do when visiting another country is, of course, try their local cuisine.
And Astreo had every intention of sampling as many dishes as he could.
Astreo, who had always held a certain affection for Japan thanks to its anime and overall otaku culture, decided to begin his food tour with sushi.
Two minutes later, he was in the restroom vomiting.
Yes—sushi tasted like absolute trash to him.
No matter how Japan portrayed sushi in anime as some sort of divine, transcendent delicacy, reality was much simpler:
Sushi was a mild dish, and because it used raw fish, it could easily be unappealing to the majority of people.
Some people genuinely enjoyed its unique flavors and texture—but that was about it.
Now, due to Astreo's sudden vomiting episode, Xyra—who had been watching from the side—immediately fell into a rage and decided that she would completely erase this island nation from the face of the Earth for daring to poison her husband with such an abomination of a dish.
Thankfully, Astreo managed to stop her before she acted on that impulse.
Having officially ranked sushi in the Trash Tier, Astreo decided to move on and try another one of Japan's most famous dishes—ramen.
Because motherfucker, you gotta believe it—if Japan failed on ramen too, then the entire country was going to be in danger.
Astreo immediately ordered the spiciest ramen available on the menu.
Thankfully for the shop—and for the continued existence of Japan—Astreo actually liked the ramen.
If he hadn't… then Xyra would have almost certainly demonstrated why one should never offend a dragoness wife by serving food that offends her cute husband's taste buds.
Ahem.
After finishing his second bowl of ramen, Astreo rubbed his stomach in satisfaction, feeling content with life once again.
Then he glanced to the side at Xyra, who still hadn't even picked up her chopsticks.
"Xyra… why aren't you eating?" Astreo finally asked, pointing toward her now-ice-cold ramen with mild concern.
"Of course, I was making sure my husb— ahem —your taste buds were safe," she replied with absolute seriousness in her eyes, as if she were stating a military protocol.
Astreo's lips twitched hard.
Finally, Xyra picked up her chopsticks and began to eat the ramen.
To Astreo's relief, she liked it as well.
In fact, she devoured her first bowl in just a few seconds and immediately ordered another.
At first, nobody in the shop paid much attention.
But when she finished her second bowl within minutes, the staff started exchanging confused glances.
By the time she requested her third bowl, customers began quietly observing her.
By her fifteenth bowl, people were rubbing their eyes, adjusting their glasses, and questioning their sanity as they watched a delicate-looking woman inhale ramen like some bottomless deity.
The speed at which she slurped and swallowed made several customers rethink the limits of human reality.
It wasn't until her thirtieth bowl that Xyra finally stopped, rubbing her tummy in satisfaction, mirroring Astreo's earlier gesture.
Her stomach didn't even bulge. Not even slightly.
"Delicious," she said with total conviction.
Everyone gulped.
If anyone in that ramen shop had to describe Xyra in a single word, "Mommy" would appear instantly in their mind.
Hot, voluptuous, and carrying an elegant grace in every small movement, she looked like an Empress who had simply decided to dine among common folk.
Her clothing—modest yet perfectly fitted—highlighted her foreign appearance, making both her and Astreo stand out even more in the shop.
Xyra had chosen a relatively conservative outfit that complemented her human form well, now that her horns were hidden that were normally part of her dragonic anatomy.
Although she had taken a human form, she still wasn't entirely used to it.
The transformation to an Emperor was recent, and adapting to her human body—and her newfound prowess—was still an ongoing process.
However, she had promised Astreo that in the future she would gain finer control over her transformation, to the point she could adjust her human appearance slightly—such as modifying the shape, size, and number of her horns, as well as altering subtle aspects of her physique.
Now that she had finally finished eating, Xyra and Astreo walked to the counter to pay.
Xyra casually placed a thick stack of yen notes on the counter.
The man working there froze for a moment—he immediately realized the amount was dozens of times more than the bill actually required.
"Keep the change," Xyra said calmly, repeating exactly what Astreo had taught her earlier when handing over large bundles of money.
Neither of them was in the mood to count bills, and since they essentially had unlimited funds, they didn't bother trying to calculate the exact amount.
The shop owner's face lit up with pure joy as he realized he had just received an absurd tip.
Convinced Xyra must be some kind of powerful mage or wealthy foreign bigshot, he bowed deeply at a full 90 degrees, expressing his gratitude with all the sincerity he could muster.
After that, Xyra scooped Astreo up into her arms, even though the sight was a bit odd considering Astreo was already ten years old.
"Let's go," Astreo said, and the two of them exited the shop together.
After leaving the ramen shop, the two of them headed to a supermarket, and Astreo and Xyra casually bought whatever they felt like buying.
Xyra, in particular, took a strong liking to black dresses of various shapes and sizes, and naturally they bought several kimonos as well—because of course, they were in Japan.
It would have been a waste not to.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Japan, the Chinese National Team was preparing for their next phase of trials.
In order to officially acquire Japan's token, they had to prove themselves on the Coastal Battlefield—a real defensive frontline used against Sea Monsters.
This stage was extremely famous in the World Tournament preliminaries because it wasn't a simulation or sparring match.
It provided real-world monster hunting experience and tested everything from combat efficiency to survival instincts.
Japan's token was well-known globally for exactly this reason:
The Japanese didn't just demand a duel.
They demanded their challengers survive an actual battlefield scenario.
Thus, for the second phase of Japan's test, the challengers would face real monsters.
The first battle against the Japanese Defender Team had merely been a screening test—a way to ensure the Chinese National Team met the minimum strength requirement before being allowed onto the real battlefield.
Japan was one of the few countries in the world that made their token trials so demanding, realistic, and valuable, even though they weren't considered a top-tier nation in overall power.
In fact, that was exactly why their token was sought after—Japan didn't offer a symbolic sparring match, they offered actual battlefield experience that benefited whichever team passed.
There was no surprise that, when the World Tournament preliminaries began, China's first choice was Japan.
Not only were the two countries geographically close, but Japan's token had real value, unlike certain weaker countries whose tokens existed for formality.
Of course, after humiliating the Japanese Defender Team earlier, the Chinese Team assumed they had performed exceptionally well.
It wasn't until they actually began fighting Sea Monsters that reality hit them.
Except for the Team Captain, Zu Xingyi, and Qin Yu'er, the rest of the team performed poorly.
Several members nearly lost their lives during the assault and would have been killed outright if those three hadn't protected them repeatedly.
For the first time, the Chinese Team realized just how hard the test was—and how little their earlier arrogance mattered on a real battlefield.
Unfortunately, during the coastal hunt, they encountered a Commander-Level Sea Monster, something they had absolutely not prepared for.
A Commander-Level beast required a coordinated team of experienced High-Tier Mages—preferably a dozen—to defeat safely.
Yet Qin Yu'er stepped forward alone and took it down.
The Chinese Team was stunned into silence.
Even a High-Tier Mage, especially one as young as Qin Yu'er, should not have been able to overpower a Commander-Level Monster so easily.
Her performance wasn't simply impressive—it was abnormal.
The strength she displayed was bordering on Super Mage Tier, and that was something no one could ignore anymore.
Japan's officials, who were secretly monitoring the battlefield from a distance, were equally shocked.
Their evaluation logs instantly transformed from casual observations to serious reports.
Even within the Chinese Team, everyone began to realize something was very wrong about Qin Yu'er—whether it was her overwhelming combat power or her refusal to use any Element other than Ice.
While Zu Xingyi openly praised her amazing performance, and the Team Captain followed with his own words of approval, the reactions of the remaining Chinese Team members shifted in an entirely different direction.
Instead of admiration, they now looked at Qin Yu'er with visible wariness and caution.
'Did she only cultivate her Ice Element and never even bother awakening another Element?' similar thoughts ran through their minds.
That was the only logical explanation they could come up with, and even that conclusion left them feeling uneasy.
Because even if she had practiced only a single Element to this extreme degree, the level of strength and power she had just shown was terrifying.
Despite the fact that Qin Yu'er had just saved all of their lives, she did not receive gratitude.
Instead, what she received were suspicious gazes, envious looks, and silent judgments.
Many of them even began privately assuming that she must have practiced some kind of forbidden or evil method to reach this level of power so quickly, because in their minds that was far easier to believe than accepting that a commoner could reach their level and surpass it.
Astreo, who was observing everything from afar while quietly sitting on Xyra's lap—Xyra herself perched casually on the railing of a tall skyscraper—couldn't help but smile faintly as he watched Qin Yu'er's situation grow worse.
'I wonder if you will call me for help…' he thought to himself as his eyes narrowed.
He had already decided how he would act depending on her choice.
If Qin Yu'er willingly called out for him and accepted his help, then that was fine.
However, if she refused him and tried to stubbornly endure everything alone, then he would simply allow fate to play out and let her be sealed by humanity in the future.
Once sealed and helpless, he would take her sealed body for himself, kill her, and then extract her Ice Calamity talent.
After that, he would bestow the extracted ability to a loyal subordinate of his choosing later on.
Yes, Astreo only cared about the results.
He wasn't desperate for Qin Yu'er to join him, because at the end of the day what he desired was her power and her unique Calamity prowess, not the person herself.
He wasn't some guy who thought from his lower half or was driven by useless emotions when it came to long-term plans and benefits.
"Xyra, let's leave… I wanna try some other dishes," Astreo said casually while swaying his legs back and forth as he sat comfortably on her lap.
Xyra smiled warmly at his adorable behavior and gently caressed his head, her touch light yet affectionate.
"As you wish, darling," she replied without a hint of hesitation, fully devoted to granting whatever he wanted.
A moment later, they both vanished effortlessly from the top of the skyscraper, leaving no trace behind except for the faint distortion in the air from their teleportation.
To be continued...
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