Chapter 72: A Desperate Gamble and a Timely Rescue

Chixiao strained, channeling every ounce of his being to coalesce the fiery essence.

As one blessed with an exceptional affinity for fire, pyromancy was inherently his most potent weapon.

Yet, without the crucial synergy of his teammates, he harbored no confidence in delivering a decisive, single strike that could fell the Silver-tier Armored Rock Lizard.

While a High-tier Great Fireball spell promised an expansive blast radius and formidable power, it came at the steep cost of accuracy, for magical beasts, unlike inert training dummies, were hardly prone to standing idly by.

Now, however, the luxury of hesitation was utterly beyond him.

Should he, too, falter, their entire team faced the grim prospect of a forced withdrawal from the trial.

A retreat would not only tarnish his burgeoning reputation as a “Fire Genius” but would also severely jeopardize their standing in the impending ranking competition.

He recalled vividly their initial encounter with the beast, a time when their confidence had soared unchecked.

It was only in the throes of actual combat that Chixiao was disabused of his naivety.

Silver-tier magical beasts, he now understood, bore little resemblance to the easily subdued creatures his seniors had demonstrated against.

They dodged, they retaliated, and they possessed an innate combat instinct honed by years of brutal experience.

For these creatures, every skirmish was a matter of life and death; how could they possibly allow mere academy students to prevail so effortlessly?

While his instructors had assured them that every magical beast possessed a weakness, Chixiao’s recent probing attacks revealed this Armored Rock Lizard to be fundamentally different from the Windblade Silver Wolf used in training exercises.

Its eyes proved not to be a vulnerability, and its body, sheathed in dense rock armor, was exceptionally resilient.

Though conventional attacks could inflict superficial damage, they were incapable of truly breaching its defenses.

Instead, one had to relentlessly assault it to forge an opening, then seize the moment to deliver a killing blow.

Yet, as always, even the most meticulously crafted plans were susceptible to the unpredictable tides of battle.

The Armored Rock Lizard had systematically overwhelmed his teammates, rendering all their careful stratagems utterly useless.

Now, his only recourse was to stake everything on a desperate, last-ditch effort, hoping to carve out a sliver of survival.

“Great Fireball!”

Chixiao roared, his knuckles, clamped around the staff, glowed an unnatural crimson from the sheer density of fire elemental energy he was channeling, while the air around him rippled and distorted under the oppressive heat.

Veins pulsed visibly across his temples, and beads of sweat, large as peas, vaporized into fine mist the instant they broke through his skin—a clear testament to his fire affinity being pushed to its absolute zenith.

‘Not enough… it’s still not enough…’

The fireball shimmering at the tip of his staff was already immense, burning a ferocious crimson.

Yet, Chixiao knew with chilling certainty that even with such devastating power, striking the nimble Armored Rock Lizard without the aid of his teammates to pin it down was nothing short of a pipe dream.

The beast had just moments ago employed a cunning feint to evade his fiery assault, and now it shrewdly skirted the periphery of the battleground.

“Cough…” A pained groan drifted from behind him, signaling a teammate’s agony.

The Earth Mage’s right foot appeared to have sustained a minor injury, and the shock had clearly rattled him.

The Wind Mage, meanwhile, fumbled with trembling hands for a potion to tend to their wounded comrade.

The first Wind Mage to fall remained sprawled unconscious on the nearby grass.

Chixiao’s teeth ground together, a harsh, grating sound.

‘Fire Genius,’ ‘Dean Candidate’—all these lofty titles dissolved into a cruel mockery in the crucible of true combat.

The elaborate combo techniques that had once garnered applause in the training arena now seemed as ludicrous as a child’s game.

Every single scale on the beast before him seemed to sneer at his naivety.

How could creatures forged in the relentless struggle of the wilderness possibly submit to being carved apart like mere training dummies?

Suddenly, the Armored Rock Lizard reared onto its hind legs, its crystalline-plated underbelly—a vulnerability never before seen—fully exposed.

Chixiao’s pupils constricted sharply. ‘Now!’ he thought, and with every fiber of his being, he unleashed the fireball.

The incandescent sphere ripped through the air, emitting a deafening, searing shriek.

Yet, a flicker of unmistakable scorn glinted within the beast’s vertical pupils.

With astonishing agility, its massive body executed a swift side-roll.

The fireball merely grazed its crystalline armor before detonating behind it, gouging a five-meter-wide crater of scorched earth.

Chixiao’s heart plummeted to his gut. The beast, he realized with a sickening lurch, had deliberately feigned vulnerability!

The lizard’s throat began to distend, a tell-tale sign that it was preparing to unleash another torrent of corrosive acid.

Chixiao watched in despair as his hands, trembling from mana exhaustion, struggled to maintain their grip.

The last flicker of flame on his staff’s tip sputtered precariously.

‘Could this truly be the end? To fall so ignominiously…’

In that desperate instant, a brilliant cerulean ice shard streaked in from the side, whistling through the air to pierce the lizard’s distended throat with pinpoint accuracy.

A second, then a third followed in quick succession, each ice shard perfectly timed to strike during the beast’s gasping breaths, forcing its jaws shut.

With the pent-up acidic energy having no outlet at its maw, the lizard thrashed in agony, its colossal body crashing into nearby trees and sending them toppling.

Chixiao, startled, spun his head to find three figures stepping out from the dappled shadows of the forest.

The silver-haired girl leading them still had wisps of cold air curling from her fingertips, while the sky-blue haired maiden beside her was meticulously weaving a complex Water-Ice magic array.

“Its throat,” the black-haired youth stated dispassionately. “The Armored Rock Lizard’s true weakness lies in its vocal organs.”

These three were none other than Su Liyue, Mu Wanqing, and the recently prominent Ye Xingchen.

“Why—” Chixiao began, but a violent fit of coughing abruptly cut him short.

Only then did he truly grasp the extent of his mana exhaustion, his magical circuits perilously close to depletion, each breath a searing agony.

“Save your questions until this creature is dealt with,” Ye Xingchen remarked, not even bothering to look up as he tossed a vibrant cerulean potion. “Drink this; it’ll restore thirty percent of your mana.”

Chixiao snatched the potion from the air, the cold glass sending a shiver through him.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he yanked out the stopper and downed its contents in a single gulp.

Instantly, a wave of refreshing energy surged from his throat, coursing throughout his body and rejuvenating his parched magical circuits.

“This is a battlefield,” Su Liyue’s voice cut through the air, sharp as an ice shard. “Distraction here will only cost you your life.”

Her staff, glowing with an ethereal blue light, tapped lightly against the earth, and a ripple of frost emanated from her, spreading rapidly outwards.

Chixiao snapped back to attention, his gaze locking onto the Armored Rock Lizard still writhing on the ground, desperately attempting to flee.

This was the practical training grounds in the academy’s back mountains, and though he had long heard rumors of the three before him, their appearance here was unexpected.

Su Liyue and Mu Wanqing, widely acknowledged as the third year’s twin magical prodigies, stood alongside Ye Xingchen—the “Alchemy Maniac” who, despite his reputation as a bottom-ranked student, had recently become remarkably active, even forming a team with the two campus beauties.

He couldn’t fathom their reasons for intervening, but given that they hadn’t chosen to lurk in the shadows, waiting to reap the spoils, he surmised they could be trusted—at least for now.

More pressing than their motives, however, was the immediate task of subduing the Silver-tier Armored Rock Lizard, a creature whose defeat promised a valuable fifty-point reward.

Had they not intervened earlier, waiting for the Armored Rock Lizard to launch its next assault would have forced the safety instructor, covertly observing from the shadows, to step in—a direct path to their team’s immediate disqualification.

“Now!” Su Liyue suddenly cried out, her voice ringing clear.

The staff in her hand erupted with a blinding blue light, and beneath the Armored Rock Lizard’s struggling form, a complex magic array materialized in an instant.

Countless ice shards erupted from the earth, temporarily immobilizing the colossal Armored Rock Lizard.

Without a moment’s thought, Chixiao seized the fleeting opportunity, channeling every ounce of his freshly restored mana into his staff.

The flame at the staff’s tip deepened from a vibrant crimson to a menacing scarlet, and the air around it visibly warped from the intense heat.

He felt his mana rapidly draining from his core, yet in this critical moment, such concerns were secondary.

“Compressed Fireball!” he roared, and a fireball, no larger than his fist yet throbbing with terrifying energy, shot forth.

The fireball tore through the air with an ear-splitting shriek, incinerating the foliage in its wake to instant ash.

Boom!

Amidst the deafening concussion, Chixiao witnessed a gaping, charred hole blasted open in the Armored Rock Lizard’s throat.

The beast let out a piteous, drawn-out shriek, yet even in its death throes, it continued to struggle.

Just then, Mu Wanqing’s formidable ice magic reached its completion.

A brilliant, ethereal blue light descended from above, piercing the beast’s fresh wound with unerring precision.

The Armored Rock Lizard’s struggles abruptly ceased.

Its immense body swayed unsteadily for a few moments, then toppled to the earth with a resounding crash.

Only then did Chixiao realize his back was utterly drenched in cold sweat, his legs trembling uncontrollably from the profound exhaustion of his mana.