"Whoosh!" A streak of golden light burst forth from the emerald badge on Kai's chest. This golden radiance was no mere magic, but a certificate—proof that its bearer topped the individual apprentice points ranking in this session of the Regional Holy Tower Academy War. Every apprentice across all Holy Towers stood a chance to claim it, yet two conditions had to be met: the apprentice must hold the highest individual points, and those points must exceed 10,000 to trigger the glow.
The sudden golden light instantly made Kai the most striking figure on the basin battlefield. Even the invisibility cloak draped over him couldn't block its radiance. In that moment, nearly every Dark Shadow Holy Tower apprentice who still stood unharmed finally saw clearly who had attacked their rear lines. His unfamiliar face and the devastating light-element magic he wielded were clear signs—Kai belonged to no other academy than the Dark Shadow Holy Tower!
"Damned outsider! How dare an apprentice from another academy sneak into our Dark Shadow territory and attack us? Take him down!" roared the only remaining quasi-magician of the Dark Shadow Holy Tower, his voice cracking with rage.
Even now, there were still nearly a hundred Dark Shadow apprentices in the basin. If so many of them unleashed their magic on Kai at once, even in his prime, he would struggle to withstand a hundred simultaneous spells. And right now, Kai was far from his best.
Yet the expected barrage of magic never came. The exotic plants had thrown the Dark Shadow apprentices into complete disarray; they scattered and fled in all directions. The quasi-magician, who wielded impressive dark-element magic, had originally charged straight for Kai, eager to avenge his fallen comrades. Given the power and frequency of Kai's earlier spells, he must be drained—and with Kai's current points total, he was a lucrative target. For revenge or points, no Dark Shadow apprentice would let him slip away.
But before the dark-element quasi-magician could act on his vengeance, the towering exotic plant creature—its body crisscrossed with gaping wounds—lunged at him once more. Even the quasi-rank vine creature joined in, lashing out with countless vines toward the quasi-magician's position. He was the Dark Shadow Holy Tower's last remaining quasi-magician, and he stood closest to the exotic plants. Who else would they target?
These exotic plants might be rooted in the earth, but they were far from mindless. The quasi-rank vine, in particular, had already recognized Kai as an "ally." Faced with the Dark Shadow apprentices' growing chaos, the small band of exotic plants did not split their forces to attack Kai; instead, they indirectly shielded him by holding back the other apprentices.
This turn of events meant that even though Kai's mental power and magic were nearly depleted, no worthy Dark Shadow apprentice dared to approach him. After all, the few capable apprentices near him had already been incinerated by the thirty-six golden beams of his Eye of the Sun.
Kai calmly pulled several vials of mental power and magic restoration potions from his spatial ring. As he collected the spoils before him, he finished off any injured Dark Shadow apprentices who still lingered—too wounded to flee, yet not yet dead.
Before him lay a male apprentice, his right arm severed and a gaping wound torn across his chest. Blood bubbled from his lips as his remaining left hand scrabbled weakly for the badge on his chest. But his broken body and fading strength kept him from grasping the token, even though it lay mere inches away. With each futile twist, fresh rivulets of scarlet seeped through his robes.
Kai stepped closer. This was a Dark Shadow intermediate apprentice, his eyes wide with terror and silent pleading. With a final, trembling effort, the apprentice's left hand closed around his badge—but before he could activate it, Kai's Fire Chain Blade struck. The apprentice's head tumbled from his shoulders, and his raised arm fell limp. Kai's expression remained cold as he retrieved the apprentice's wand, then fished a brass spatial ring from the bloodied folds of his robes. He turned away from the corpse and moved to the next target.
"Monster! He's a monster!" A shrill scream pierced the air nearby. An apprentice who had witnessed the killing activated his Holy Tower badge in a panic. A crimson flash swallowed him, and he vanished from the trial space.
Kai barely spared the departed apprentice a glance—just a low-level nobody, not worth his time.
"Monster?" Kai muttered to himself. "Is that some kind of exotic creature? I never read about it in the Blue Source Holy Tower's library."
Each Holy Tower held unique knowledge and archives. Though Kai had no idea what a "monster" truly was, the apprentice's terror made it clear: it was no benign thing.
Kai spent less than five minutes gathering spoils and finishing off stragglers. The Dark Shadow apprentices had suffered heavy losses from his ambush and the exotic plants' counterattack, yet as they retreated from the basin's center, they still rallied into a group of nearly a hundred. Kai, his magic and mental power not yet fully restored, could never take them all on his own. The exotic plants, too, had been decimated—their numbers were already small, and with many dead, only a dozen or twenty remained, too few to hold back the apprentices any longer.
"It's time to go," Kai sighed softly, as if regretting he couldn't finish off the rest of the Dark Shadow apprentices. Beyond their hateful, fearful stares, his biggest problem now was the golden light pouring from his Blue Source badge.
To most apprentices in the trial, this light symbolized the highest glory and prestige. But for Kai, stranded in Dark Shadow territory, it was nothing but an eyesore—blinding, and dangerous. He tried tucking the badge into his spatial equipment, but an invisible force repelled his hand. He was stuck, a giant, glowing "torch" impossible to miss.
"I need to hide this or block it somehow!" Kai cursed under his breath, activating his Levitation Spell and soaring toward the basin's edge. The hundred-odd Dark Shadow apprentices could only glare in silence as they watched him escape.
Little did Kai know that, moments before his slaughter at the Lanxi Grass Basin in Dark Shadow territory, another scene unfolded far away—at the Dragon Fruit Large Resource Point in the Earth Academy Holy Tower's domain.
Magic light lingered like a halo around the resource point. Thanks to the Earth Academy apprentices' unity, the Dragon Fruit Resource Point was about to become their second large resource point claimed in the war. To seize two large resource points in just two months since the war began—only the Earth Academy, with its deep foundations and countless prodigies, could pull off such a feat.
At the forefront of the apprentices stood a man clutching a wand, his body encased in earth-element armor. He was the most brilliant figure among them: Gade, the "Heart of the Earth," the most talked-about prodigy before the Regional Academy War began. His emergence had been hailed as the Earth Academy's greatest talent in a century. Earlier, under his leadership, the academy had claimed its first large resource point. Now, with a second under his belt, it seemed all but certain he would top the individual points ranking this session.
A fire-element exotic lizard—its strength comparable to a quasi-rank creature—collapsed with a wail before Gade. A third of its skull was crushed, one eye burst; the damage spoke of a blow of unimaginable force. Earthen shackles erupted from the ground, pinning the lizard's limbs, tail, and neck in place.
Around this defeated lizard lay dozens more of its kind—thirty or forty fire-element lizards, all dead, including a female quasi-rank lizard. This was the last exotic lizard guarding the Dragon Fruit Resource Point.
A massive stone mace materialized in Gade's hand. With a single strike, the last lizard's skull shattered, its white and red brains splattering across the ground. A flood of points poured into his account, yet Gade's stony face remained unchanged—until he pressed his hand to the center of the Dragon Fruit Resource Point and etched the Earth Academy's unique mark. Only then did a faint smile tug at the corner of the peak apprentice's lips.
The points reward for being the first to mark a large resource point was a whopping 3,000. And as those 3,000 points hit his total, a burst of golden light erupted from Gade's Holy Tower badge—a symbol of strength, proof of his place at the top of the rankings.
Gade had long held the number one spot, but the light only appeared once his points exceeded 10,000. It was both an honor and a challenge: with golden light surrounding him, Gade would undoubtedly become a target for top apprentices from other Holy Towers for the rest of the war. But Gade feared nothing. He would defend the Earth Academy's glory and lead its apprentices to claim both titles—first in individual points and first in total academy points.
Yet Gade's pride barely had time to take root before the golden light around him faded away. The sudden change left Gade frozen in the center of the resource point. Nearby, hundreds of Earth Academy apprentices erupted into gasps and murmurs.
As the academy's most promising peak apprentice—one who had even been granted an audience with the Holy Tower Master before the war—Gade understood the war's mechanics better than most. There was only one explanation for what had happened: the first place he had just claimed was already stolen by an apprentice from another Holy Tower.
Gade's face paled, though the earth-element particles clinging to his body masked the change. The peak apprentice did not lash out in anger; instead, he turned to his comrades.
"Secure the Dragon Fruit Resource Point immediately. Leave some intermediate and low-level apprentices to guard it—we move to the next resource point at once!" Gade's voice echoed through the air, steady and calm, yet a sharp edge of defiance lurked beneath the surface as he strode toward the resource point's exit.
...High above the trial space, Kai's bold ambush in the Dark Shadow territory's Lanxi Grass Basin—and his rise to the top of the real-time points ranking—did not go unseen. The five Holy Tower Masters and the even more revered Guardian of Summer watched the scene unfold, their expressions varying. None spoke up to condemn Kai, however; his actions were well within the war's rules.
The Regional Holy Tower Academy War was no game. Where there was "war," there was death. In the previous session, nearly 40% of the Blue Source Holy Tower's apprentices—close to 4,000—had perished, yet the Holy Tower Masters had not fallen out over it. Kai's slaughter of fifty-odd apprentices was a drop in the bucket compared to the total casualties of each war.
"Heh, is this young apprentice the secret weapon your Blue Source Holy Tower prepared for this war?" asked the Dark Shadow Holy Tower Master. Despite his apprentices' massacre, there was no malice or anger in his tone—only calm curiosity. Of course, his composure might have had something to do with the Guardian of Summer standing beside him. The other Masters knew well that the Dark Shadow Master, a renowned dark-element expert, was not usually so easygoing.
The Blue Source Holy Tower Master remained silent, neither confirming nor denying the question.
The Earth Academy Holy Tower Master let out a hearty laugh, unperturbed that his academy's prodigy had lost the top spot. "In the last war, you and Lu Xiu ganged up on Lulianman," he joked, referring to the Dark Shadow Master and the Thunder Shine Holy Tower Master by name. "Now Lulianman's carefully trained apprentice has gotten even. We'll call it quits—haha!"
Lu Xiu, the Thunder Shine Holy Tower Master, looked slightly embarrassed. In the previous war, of the 4,000 Blue Source apprentices who died in the trial space, nearly 3,000 had been killed by the combined forces of the Dark Shadow and Thunder Shine Holy Towers—not counting those slain by exotic creatures or other academies. Together, they had single-handedly doubled Blue Source's casualty rate.
The Dark Shadow Holy Tower's actions had likely been a pre-war strategy by its academy deans. It was a simple truth: everyone picked on the weak, and no one could fault the Dark Shadow Tower for that. The Thunder Shine Holy Tower's aggression, however, had little to do with its Master or deans. It had all been the doing of an anomaly—a monster—who emerged from Thunder Shine that session: Martinez, the Thunder Controller.
Martinez had swept through all five apprentice territories and ultimately claimed the top spot in the points ranking. His extreme personality, shaped by a troubled childhood, made him an outlier. Born into a declining noble family, he had endured countless hardships before joining the Thunder Shine Holy Tower at the age of fifty—as a mere intermediate apprentice.
Obsessed with power and gifted beyond measure in thunder-element magic, Martinez had skyrocketed after joining Thunder Shine. In just over a decade, he had reached the quasi-magician rank and represented the academy in the Regional War. If Martinez had been willing to cooperate with others or lead his fellow Thunder Shine apprentices to earn points, Thunder Shine might have even claimed the top spot in the total academy rankings that session. Such a maverick was a mixed blessing for any Holy Tower—admired for his strength, yet feared for his indifference.
Martinez now studied directly under the Thunder Shine Holy Tower Master, making him a disciple of Lu Xiu, a Level 5 thunder-element magician. Thus, when the Earth Academy Master mentioned the previous war—especially his new disciple—Lu Xiu shifted uncomfortably. Unlike Martinez, with his cold cruelty, Lu Xiu was a surprisingly approachable Holy Tower Master.
In fact, all five Holy Tower Masters in this region were on good terms. Even the somewhat somber Dark Shadow Master had helped Lulianman, the Blue Source Master, when her tower was first established. Conflicts among apprentices never strained the Masters' friendship. To these towering figures, the Regional Academy War—held once every fifty years—was little more than a spectacle of their "pet ants" fighting. They might take a passing interest in the strongest or most outstanding ants, rewarding them occasionally. Martinez's elevation to Lu Xiu's disciple had been a rare exception, made possible only by his extraordinary talent and achievements.
The Dark Shadow Master's question was largely for the Guardian of Summer's benefit. Normally, the five Masters would not have bothered to watch the war—per tradition, it was overseen by the academies' deans. But the Guardian of Summer had happened to pass through their region, drawing them all to the trial space's heights. Even Martinez's apprenticeship had been decided after the previous war: Lu Xiu had emerged from a successful research experiment in a good mood, heard of Martinez's feats, and taken him as a disciple on a whim.
(Note: By tradition, the Regional Holy Tower Academy War is managed by each academy's dean; the Holy Tower Masters never interfere in such trivial matters. The war's results and rankings also serve as a key measure of the deans' competence.)
"Heh, it seems I've stumbled upon quite the promising apprentice," the Guardian of Summer chuckled. "Let's watch to see what he does next."
Following her gaze, the five Masters turned their attention back to the trial space below. The Guardian had mentioned earlier that she was heading to the Western Islands, yet she showed no hurry to leave. While the Masters had heard of the Four Guardians of the Wizarding World and their deeds, they knew little of their true natures. The Guardian of Summer was as fiery as her title—direct and impulsive—yet also the most unpredictable of the four. She lacked the Guardian of Winter's rigidity, the Guardian of Autumn's diligence, or the Guardian of Spring's gentleness. She did as she pleased, and no one in the Wizarding World dared to restrain her. If she wanted to stay a while longer, the Masters could hardly ask her to leave.
...In the trial space, Kai finally landed in a seemingly empty, safe area. He wasted no time in tallying his spoils from the basin. The spatial rings and magic gear were too cluttered to sort through immediately, but his new points total was clear: 14,760. It had nearly doubled his previous score—no wonder he had shot to the top of the real-time rankings.
Yet the golden light leaking from his badge still annoyed him. Even in this empty area, the glow was bright enough to attract any passing apprentice. The Dark Shadow apprentices had suffered a humiliating defeat; they would surely come looking for revenge.
"Looks like I'll have to take this badge apart to block the light," Kai muttered. He had disassembled Blue Source badges before—more than one—and even developed a few special uses for them in the process. As a skilled alchemist, he was confident he could solve the problem with his craft.
But just as he pulled a simple alchemical workbench from his spatial bracelet, a shadowy arrow suddenly shot toward him from the side. If Kai's golden Eye of the Sun mask hadn't been enchanted with a permanent Detection Spell, he would have been hit. His pursuer's stealth and tracking skills were impressive—they had followed him all the way here without being detected.
"You caused so much chaos in our Dark Shadow territory… did you really think you could escape unscathed?" The hidden apprentice sneered. He had identified Kai as a Blue Source apprentice from his badge. "After that big battle and fleeing here with Levitation Spell, your mental power and magic must be drained, right? Prepare to die—I'll take your points!"
Several more shadow arrows flew at Kai from all directions.
"Is that so?" Kai dodged one arrow awkwardly, then suddenly looked up. His gaze locked onto a large tree roughly fifty meters away.
In the blink of an eye, six blinding golden lights flared across the surface of his golden mask. Before his pursuer could react, the six golden beams shot forward—swallowing the tree, its surrounding foliage, and everything hiding within.