Chapter 61: A Golden-Tier Challenge and a Fiery Innovation

Even as Mu Wanqing spoke, the Golden-tier magical beast lumbered into their view, its footsteps shaking the very ground.

Its entire body was covered in dark golden scales, a fearsome sight to behold.

With each ponderous step, its thick, powerful limbs left deep claw marks etched into the hard, rocky ground.

Its colossal frame was utterly incomparable to the Silver-tier Windblade Silver Wolf they had just encountered for training.

Standing over three meters tall at the shoulder and stretching an astonishing five meters in length, its sheer height was equivalent to two Windblade Silver Wolves stacked together.

Most chilling of all were its beastly eyes, glowing with a bloodthirsty ferocity.

“Oh heavens… is, is this a Golden-tier magical beast?” Mu Wanqing gasped, her gaze fixed on the gargantuan figure drawing ever closer, her legs feeling as heavy as if filled with lead.

She could distinctly smell the pungent, foul odor emanating from the beast, and watched as corrosive saliva dripped from its maw, scorching small pits into the ground.

Fear rendered her voice a stuttering mess.

“Yueyue, we, we need to run! This thing is far beyond anything we can handle!”

Su Liyue, however, calmly took Mu Wanqing’s cold hand.

“Don’t panic,”

She gestured towards Ye Xingchen with a slight nod of her head, “Isn’t our flower-guarding escort, Ye Xingchen, here with us?”

“Such a massive magical beast, one claw alone could snatch him whole! Your Xingchen…” Mu Wanqing’s voice, shrill with terror, abruptly caught in her throat.

Ye Xingchen, unhurried, simply stepped forward, his standard, unadorned magic staff tracing an elegant arc through the air.

His lips moved almost imperceptibly as he silently chanted the incantation: ‘Qimen Plate (TL Note: A divination system and magical artifact), Nine Heavens + Harm Gate.’

Instantly, an invisible ripple of spiritual energy expanded outwards from his position.

The terrifying magical beast’s gaze abruptly shifted; its eyes, which had been darting uncertainly between the three, now locked onto Ye Xingchen with chilling intensity.

Its pupils constricted into thin slits, and its thick tail thrashed restlessly against the ground, kicking up plumes of dust.

With a deafening roar, it completely disregarded the two girls standing mere feet away, charging ferociously towards Ye Xingchen alone, each stride causing the very earth to tremble.

“Oh heavens… what was that?” Mu Wanqing was on the verge of crying out, watching wide-eyed as the magical beast, less than ten meters from them, abruptly veered, its destructive momentum now aimed solely at Ye Xingchen.

The powerful gust of wind generated by the beast’s charge even lifted her skirt, forcing her to instinctively press it down with her hand.

“I told you it would be fine,” Su Liyue remarked calmly, her slender fingers gently tucking a wind-tossed strand of hair behind her ear.

She could clearly perceive the unique spiritual energy fluctuations emanating from the Qimen Plate Ye Xingchen had activated—an energy frequency imbued with provocation, as conspicuous as a lighthouse in the dead of night.

This was the combined effect of Nine Heavens and Harm Gate within the Qimen Plate.

Nine Heavens represented extreme attraction, while Harm Gate contained the power of provocation and enragement.

Combined, they served to ‘draw aggro’, maximizing the hostility of surrounding creatures towards him and inciting an uncontrollable urge to attack him.

Furthermore, this effect became increasingly pronounced with creatures of lower sentience.

In his previous life, however, within the cultivation world, Ye Xingchen had considered this skill rather useless.

After all, encountering a group of cultivators would only make him a target for all, placing him in grave danger.

Yet, in this magical world, when facing magical beasts that acted purely on instinct, this very skill had become the optimal means of protecting Su Liyue behind him.

Observing the magical beast completely disregard the two girls and charge solely at him, a subtle, enigmatic smile played on Ye Xingchen’s lips.

While the aggro had indeed been successfully drawn, Ye Xingchen’s immediate concern was how to withstand the onslaught of this Armored Dragon Turtle without overly exposing his true strength.

To ordinary students, a magical beast of this caliber might seem terrifying beyond measure, but to him, its eradication was merely a flick of his finger.

Beyond securing rankings and Star Ore for Su Liyue and Mu Wanqing, the primary objective of this trial was to gauge the practical efficacy of his three years spent studying magic.

After all, only by personally experiencing magical combat could one truly comprehend its damage output in a real battle.

With this thought in mind, Ye Xingchen subtly retrieved a shield from his storage ring (TL Note: A magical ring capable of storing items in a spatial dimension).

This was an alchemical creation he had casually assembled from various materials while calibrating his magic-conducting gun.

Though the Armored Dragon Turtle before him appeared incredibly formidable, this shield, crafted from a special alloy, should be capable of withstanding several rounds of its attacks.

This presented an opportune moment for Su Liyue and Mu Wanqing to unleash their magical attacks, which should be sufficient to eliminate it.

Boom!

The Armored Dragon Turtle’s massive, scale-covered claw descended with a tearing sound through the air, only to be neutralized the instant it met the shield by a faint blue energy barrier.

The terrifying impact caused the ground beneath Ye Xingchen’s feet to crack and sink, yet the arm holding the shield remained utterly unmoving.

Mu Wanqing watched, utterly dumbfounded.

‘An attack capable of pulverizing solid rock was casually fended off like that?’ she thought.

‘Is this the true power of the ‘Alchemy Maniac’?’

‘Even if the shield possessed some special properties, an impact of that magnitude should be utterly unbearable for an apprentice mage…’

“Qingqing, stop staring blankly!” Su Liyue’s voice snapped her back to reality.

“Xingchen’s shield won’t last much longer; this is our best chance to test the fruits of our three years of study!”

As she spoke, Su Liyue had already begun to conjure fire magic.

At the tip of her staff, a crimson fireball rapidly materialized, the flames flickering across its surface displaying an unusual pale blue hue.

Her research over the past three years had revealed that traditional fire magic either harnessed wind to intensify its blaze or combined with earth to create meteoric impacts.

No one had ever attempted to merge it with the opposing element of water.

However, her male counterpart was none other than the Alchemy Maniac, Ye Xingchen.

Leveraging the alchemy of this world and his chemical knowledge from his previous life on Earth, he had long since mastered the technique of breaking down water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

When the Fireball spell combined with hydrogen, it produced a violent explosion.

Coupled with the oxygen’s combustion-enhancing effect, its power rivaled that of a small bomb.

This combination’s destructive force far surpassed traditional methods, perfectly embodying the essence of fire magic’s pursuit of ultimate power.

Bang!

As Su Liyue swung her staff, the fireball arced in a graceful trajectory.

The moment it made contact with the Dragon Turtle’s back, a blinding white flash accompanied by a deafening explosion reverberated throughout the valley.

A searing wave of heat swept outwards, sending nearby trees swaying violently.

When the smoke and dust finally cleared, a massive, charred indentation was starkly visible on the Dragon Turtle’s supposedly impenetrable shell.