The atmosphere within the Triumphal Gate colosseum was thick with a complex brew of shock, analysis, and simmering tension. The largest dark horse of the exam had not only appeared but had violently kicked down the door to the first tier. Whether others would follow remained to be seen, but for Lan Luoqi and the elders of the Teng and Lan families from Jingyang, the revelation was a thunderclap of dismay.
Damn it all!Was she hiding her true strength during the preliminary exam half a month ago, or has she grown by leaps and bounds since then? This level of progress defies reason!
Lan Luoqi muttered, half to himself, "It must be Zhou Miao's doing. That woman is terrifying. To cultivate someone to first-tier strength in just half a month… Even with Xie bloodline potential, his foundational aptitudes were garbage."
Lan Xuanyu, who had reviewed the intelligence stolen from within the Xie family, knew the facts. 'Ox' had undergone genetic verification upon entering the Xie household. The results confirmed the bloodline, but within the aristocratic system, genes dictated destiny. His profile had been unequivocal: poor foundational aptitudes, a genetic dead-end with zero likelihood of awakening a bloodline talent, let alone achieving the profound transformation of Verdant Vitality. An external force hadto be involved. The question was how? Or more precisely, how had Zhou Miao managed it?
"Howis no longer the relevant question," Lan Xuanyu stated, his voice cold and decisive. He swiftly activated his communicator, dialing his father, the Lan family patriarch. His next words made Lan Luoqi's jaw drop. "Father, conduct an immediate audit. Prepare to divest twenty percent of the family's non-core assets. Also, hand over the operatives responsible for the previous assassination attempts on 'Ox' for disciplinary action. And tell A-Shuang and the others… they must be ready to make sacrifices for the family. Do it quickly. If we delay, no one will be able to shield us."
He ended the call and turned his impassive gaze to his stunned uncle. "You understand the situation better than I do now. With this level of demonstrated talent and Zhou Miao's backing, even if I grew wings, I couldn't catch up."
"But your master…" Lan Luoqi began weakly.
"My dear uncle," Lan Xuanyu's voice was flat, "have your recent… gains from Zhou Linglang's circle made you complacent? If my master learns I've made an enemy of someone with this potential and backing, do you really think he'd keep me?"
Lan Luoqi wasn't naive, just grasping at straws. "Those who want her dead far outnumber those willing to help her."
Lan Xuanyu frowned. "The choice is between taking a strategic step back to ensure the family's survival, or standing still and praying for a miracle. Which would you choose?"
Lan Luoqi sighed. He understood. After this exam, 'Ox' was a lock for the Four Great Academies. As a first-tier talent, he would likely attract a mentor during his studies who could match, or even surpass, Lan Xuanyu's own master. His starting point would be higher, his future trajectory inevitably steeper. The threat was real and present. Waiting for him to conveniently die young was the fantasy of a fool.
"Where are you going?" Lan Luoqi asked as his nephew turned to leave.
"To preemptively apologize and withdraw my candidacy from my master's circle. A strategic retreat is better than being expelled. If he casts me out, no other respectable master will touch me—they'd avoid the stain and his displeasure. My future at Beiluke University would be halved before it began."
"I see. You plan to lie low."
"No," Lan Xuanyu corrected, casting a final, inscrutable look at the screen where 'Ox' stood amidst the settling dust. "I plan to join." With that, he strode away, his figure swallowed by the shadowed exit.
Donglong Zhao, fleeing for his life, his body a tapestry of hastily healed wounds and lingering pain, stumbled around a corner and nearly collided with another group.
A bolt of fire mana sizzled past his ear before a sharp voice called out, "Hold!"
The group, five strong and moving with lethal coordination, halted. The leader, a youth with an imperious bearing and sharp, evaluating eyes, stepped forward. "Cousin? What happened?"
It was Li Yu, from the Li Orange-Blood family. Older by mere months, but the gulf in presence was vast. Donglong Zhao, proud and self-sufficient, never sought help or relied on others for spoils. But fate had thrown him into Li Yu's path.
To beg for help? To ask for vengeance against Ox?
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second before quickly summarizing the encounter. Li Yu's expression remained unreadable. "An unexpectedly dark horse, then. Is he pursuing you? I can trace the residual aura on you and finish him."
He made a move to cast a tracking spell, but Donglong Zhao raised a hand. "Don't. It would waste your time. The exam ranking is paramount. And… he wasn't excessive."
Li Yu's eyes narrowed slightly. He understood the unspoken complexity. Ox knew how to play the game.At their age, in the heat of competition, most were consumed by immediate pride and gain. To show restraint, to consider the long game… it was rare.
"Very well," Li Yu nodded. "Join us."
Donglong Zhao, who would normally have refused, thought of the remaining examinees—each one a monster. If even someone like Li Yu was running with a team, soloing was suicide. Ox had spared him, preserved his face, but also lit a fire under him. He needed a better ranking, a better class placement, a better mentor. "Agreed."
As he consumed more precious healing elixirs, restoring most of his vitality, he asked, "Any of the real apex predators on the third level?"
He was asking about the very top of the first tier, the ones he desperately hoped to avoid.
Li Yu, not one to waste words, was already leading his team—all high-second-tier elites, including a sensory specialist—towards an untouched cell. "Xie Yiyuan and Li Cang descended to the fourth level almost immediately. That freak Hong Yan… I never even saw him enter. I suspect they're after something bigger."
Li Yu was arrogant, ranking himself comfortably in the top ten of the first tier. But he tacitly acknowledged three as being in a league of their own. They were from the same elite class at Beiluke's top academy. The system funneled talent and resources into ever-tighter circles.
"Did you run into Yun Baobao and Wang Doudou? That duo is trouble."
"No."
Suddenly, Li Yu's head snapped up, eyes fixed on the ceiling. A tremendous tremor, a surge of violent mana, echoed from the floor above. First-tier magnitude.And it wasn't just one signature clashing… there were two.
Ox is one… but who's the other?
Yao had just secured her primary objective and was now racing against time to tackle the second hidden chamber. The door was already open, but the prisoner within was far more ferocious than the first. She didn't enter. Ranged combat was her forte, and she hadn't yet committed to a formal weapon-based profession—that decision was best made post-Level 30, when aptitudes were fully realized. She didn't need the early boost.
From the threshold, she unleashed a torrent of controlled, devastating light, pinning the monstrous inmate inside. Its health bar plummeted under the relentless assault. Yet, even as she maintained this overwhelming pressure, she split her focus. A thread of light, rendered invisible to the naked eye, slithered out from the main barrage, snaking away down the corridor.
The inmate, confused and enraged, braced for a trick that never came. He died bewildered.
The omniscient viewers in the colosseum saw it too, puzzled by the stray thread of energy. Their confusion lasted until their "god's-eye view" tracked a dark, swift-moving blur converging on Yao's location.
Someone's coming!
The Guild officials, who had designed this exam, understood immediately. Only a first-tier competitor who had solved the puzzle would linger on the upper floors, confident in their ability to make up points later. Power trumped early hustle.
On screen, they saw 'Ox' move towards the open cell to claim her prize. Then, her form shimmered. Features melted and reformed, body structure shifting subtly. In the blink of an eye, she stood there, not as herself, but as a perfect replica of Qin Minfeng.
On the recovery platform, Qin Minfeng, enduring the agonizingly slow healing of his… specific injuries, felt his blood run cold. His pupils contracted to pinpricks.
The audience was baffled. Why impersonate a dead man? Unless…
Whoosh!
The dark blur arrived. A figure clad in simple, dark grey combat gear, his hair stark white, eyes a chilling, pupil-less silver. "Que Baige!" someone gasped.
"Shit, Que Baige! He's top twenty in the first tier!"
Que Baige took in the scene: the destroyed hidden cell, and 'Qin Minfeng' poised to enter. His lips curled in a cold smirk. "Qin Minfeng. As I expected. You solved the puzzle. Consider yourself my temporary steward. Hand it over, and I might let you live." He didn't wait for a reply. His hand moved, energy gathering at his fingertips.
But 'Qin Minfeng' did something utterly unexpected. He turned and ran, fleeing without a second glance at the treasure within.
Hah! Knows his place,Que Baige thought, a flicker of contempt in his silver eyes. He had no intention of letting his prey escape. He didn't give chase. Instead, he raised his hand, where a faint, almost invisible psychic thread glimmered—a tracer he'd planted on the realQin Minfeng's aura earlier. He'd been tracking his chosen puzzle-rival all along.
The audience collectively gasped as they understood. Ohhh!
Que Baige, confident in his trap, stepped into the cell to claim his prize.
And collidedwith a figure who seemed to materialize from the very shadows of the doorway.
The colosseum screens clearly showed the newcomer. A collective, horrified intake of breath swept through the Beiluke City section. The Que family seats erupted in panic.
"It's him! How is he here?!"
"Baige is in danger!"
Que Baige's face went deathly pale. His mind, sharp as a razor, connected the dots in an instant. "It's not me! The treasure is gone, it was a—!"
A wave of incandescent, molten rock, glowing with hellish orange-red heat, poured into the confined space before he could finish. Que Baige screamed, his body morphing instantly. Scales, thick and dark like a crocodile's hide, erupted across his skin as he activated a defensive fusion. He managed three seconds against the blistering tide.
"Hong Yan, listen! It's a setup! We've been— Damn it!" He realized his proudest defense was melting. With a roar of pure desperation, he burned his life force, triggering his First-Sequence talent.
A weapon manifested. Not some weak, flailing appendage, but a massive, wicked scythe forged from condensed gloom and freezing energy. With a resonant hum, it carved a fleeting opening in the magma. Que Baige poured every last drop of his power into a final, explosive lunge.
He shot out of the cell, a charred, bleeding comet. "You bastard! Don't let me find out who— Damn you, Qin Minfeng!" he shrieked, even in his escape trying to shift the blame.
He thought he'd made it. Then, a waterfall of magma dropped from the ceiling above the corridor.
Absolute, obliterating heat.
It engulfed him completely.
In the nanosecond before his forced withdrawal glyph activated, his final, psychic scream echoed: "HONG YAN! IT WAS QIN MINFENG!"
Hong Yan, the living volcano, watched the glyph flicker and vanish. The magma receded, coalescing back into his human form—a lean, impassive youth with hair the color of cooled ash and eyes like smoldering coals. He picked up the small spatial pouch Que Baige had dropped. He rummaged through it.
Huh. Nothing.
He'd killed the wrong guy?
On the colosseum floor, the withdrawal glyph deposited a thoroughly cooked, mentally scarred Que Baige. The elite scion of an Orange-Blood family, a top-twenty first-tier contender, had been instantlyerased by one of the acknowledged top three. The psychological shadow cast over Que Baige and the entire Que family was vaster than the arena itself. But his burning hatred and humiliation met a jarring sight.
Across the way, surrounded by healers, was the very person he'd just cursed with his dying thought.
Que Baige: "…?"
What? Does Qin Minfeng have a twin?
The audience's reaction was a masterpiece of collective cognitive dissonance. On screen, the terrifying figure of Hong Yan was still holding the pouch, having looted a few minor point items. He frowned, thoughtful.
"Huh. Really nothing. Qin Minfeng… what a worthless piece of trash."
He knew the real treasure from a hidden chamber wouldn't be these trinkets. So Que Baige hadn't lied.
Outside, the recipient of this magnificent framing, Qin Minfeng, felt his vision blur. A wave of nausea and sheer, impotent rage overwhelmed him. He vomited a mouthful of blood.
He finally understood. In Ox's eyes, he wasn't even prey. He was a pawn.
"She collected our residual aura signatures during the fight," he croaked, the realization a poison. "She used mine to lure Que Baige… and others like him. She made them fight each other while she took the prize and vanished."
Because anyone who had solved the puzzle would be hunting her. So she used one thread to tie them all together. Even if they met and realized it was a misunderstanding, the iron law of the exam applied: non-teammates were enemies. And enemies were eliminated.
"But what if they teamed up?" a young Fu girl in the stands asked, puzzled.
Fu Qiang patted her head, sighing the same words an elder from the Donglong family had just uttered. "Anyone who solved the puzzle and has the strength to chase the solver is, by nature, a top contender. They don't sharespoils. A meeting between them only ends one way."
She had effortlessly eliminated a powerful rival. And herself? She had slipped away unscathed.
For now.
Chen Sihai, once he recovered from his shock, could only mutter to his family about 'cowardly tricks' and 'underhanded schemes.'
The Donglong elder, after his earlier pronouncement, sighed again. "That child is formidable. A'Zhao was outmatched. He lost fairly. And thankfully, he lived…" But he was puzzled. She showed the Donglong face, yet ruthlessly framed Que Baige to his death. Wasn't she afraid of the Que family's wrath?
A moment later, understanding dawned, and with it, a wry, bitter smile. "It seems it's because A'Zhao posed no real threat to her."
Or perhaps not just 'no threat'. The outside world saw a master schemer, a trickster goddess. But Yao herself, having witnessed Hong Yan's casual, apocalyptic power, felt a chill that had nothing to do with subterfuge.
The gap is that vast?She could have beaten Que Ba歌, but it would have cost her. Hong Yan had erasedhim. "If he's that strong, then the others on his level—Li Cang, Xie Yiyuan… I'd have to avoid them outright."
Her plans needed recalibrating. Hong Yan's display was a stark reminder: in the pyramid of provincial talent, she was climbing fast, but the apex was occupied by monsters. She could still be swatted down on her way up.
She chose to vanish, melting into the labyrinthine prison depths. But first, she severed the psychic thread she'd woven from Qin Minfeng's aura. Anyone smart enough to solve the puzzle would figure out the ruse soon enough.
In a secluded, hollowed-out space, she finally examined her spoils. The first box, from the initial hidden chamber, held a stone the color of a deep ocean sky, cool to the touch and humming with dense, protective energy.
"A Blue-tier Defensive Principle Stone? For the first level?" She was pleasantly surprised. Principle Stones were far superior to wall-carved inscriptions—portable, detailed, created only by masters above Level 50. "If I weren't broke, selling these would be a business," she mused, her recent poverty making her view everything through a prism of potential profit. This one, however, was for use.
The principle seemed complex, high-tier even among Blue-level defenses. It wasn't a simple shield. It hinted at concepts of damage transference, dispersion… She'd need time to study it. Binding it to her core, she let Little Locust begin the preliminary analysis through their shared senses.
Then, the second box. She opened it and her heart sank a little.
An Equipment Upgrade Scroll?
After the Principle Stone, it felt… mundane. She was past the stage of jubilating over every upgrade. A first-level Blue Principle Stone, then a second-level… upgrade scroll? She picked it up, examining it closely.
Equipment Upgrade & Mutation Scroll.
Blue-tier Equipment: Upgrade Success Rate 50%, Mutation Rate +30%.
Green-tier Equipment: Upgrade Success Rate 90%, Mutation Rate +60%.
(Failure does not destroy equipment; reverts to original state.)
Her interest, initially lukewarm, ignited. Mutation.And a failure protectionclause. This explained its placement. This was rare, valuable.
Her mind flew immediately to the Silkstrand Ring. A humble Bronze-tier trinket she had wrung every ounce of utility from, the foundation of so many of her techniques. Upgraded to Green, then to Blue using spare scrolls from the Xie stores, it had served her well but had plateaued. The Xie had no higher-tier upgrade materials.
And now this.
"Could it… go to Orange?" she whispered. Those Orange-Blood scions likely had Orange-tier gear from birth, their stats artificially inflated by sheer wealth. She'd resigned herself to that gap. This scroll was a chance, however slim.
"Consider it a bonus for dealing with Que Baige," she told herself, a mix of hope and pragmatism. "Worst case, it stays the same."
She didn't hesitate. Channeling mana into the scroll, she pressed it against the simple band on her finger.
A soft light enveloped the ring.
Ding! Evolution failed.
Ding! Mutation successful.
Her heart did a funny little flip. She was only human, not immune to hope and its sudden deflation… and subsequent surprise.
Mutation successful? What did it become? Please don't let the silk-strand ability be gone!
She snatched the ring up, her perception flooding it.
Winged Lumistrand Ring.
Rare Mutated Blue-tier Equipment.
Evolution to Orange-tier failed. Mutation resulted in maxed attributes and the activation of the 'Winged' trait.
Winged:Grants the ability of sustained aerial flight. +30% movement speed while flying at high altitude.
Lumistrand:Mutated due to wielder's profound affinity with Light Element. Silk strands are now composed of solidified light. Tensile strength and sharpness increased by 500%. Can now seamlessly channel and sustain other Light-element arcane arts along its length.
For a moment, Yao just stared. She remembered Zhou Linglang's wings, the elegant constructs of solidified wind that marked advancement past Level 30. That was the standard—a milestone she hadn't yet reached, requiring no external devices.
But this… her ring gave it to her now.
One might scoff: So what? Everyone gets wings at 30.But this was an additiveability. That "+30% high-altitude speed" was a game-changer. If two fliers were otherwise matched, that bonus could outweigh tens of thousands of agility points. And crucially, she could fly now, while others at her level couldn't. No more being a grounded target.
Qin Minfeng's metallic wings had made her wary. His unnerving evasions probably weren't just 'protagonist luck'—those wings played a part.
Now, she had her own.
"This… is better than a generic Orange-tier piece that just stacks raw stats," she murmured, awe cutting through her usual cynicism. She knew she could trade this ring for a standard Orange weapon in a heartbeat.
Two boxes, two excellent prizes. A fortuitous start.
Now… what next?
The prison around her hummed with unseen dangers and unparalleled opportunities. She had wings now, literal and metaphorical. It was time to see how high she could truly fly.