novelraw Chapter 26 : Seven Schools Training
Chapter 26 : Seven Schools Training
She continued watching the light screen, seeing Cang Jing successfully flip over the energy body, but just as the light blade was about to stab down.
Gu Qinxue's eyes lifted, her mecha's gun withdrawn, a ball of floating fire appearing in her freed outer hand. As she flashed out, the fire roared along her path, her form moving faster than Cang Jing who had left a step earlier, approaching the energy body more rapidly.
Heat waves broke through the surrounding gale, a sharp fiery object passing in front of Cang Jing, crossing less than a meter in front of his exoskeleton, quickly slicing past.
The tail of the flame was gripped by a metal arm, the sound of fire enveloping something flashed, only a white mass visible at the shoulder.
The exoskeleton rapidly crossed paths with him.
"Thud------"
The sharp tip of the flame penetrated the exposed abdominal segment of the flipped slug.
Striking precisely according to the analyst's specified range.
"Boom!!"
After the flame pierced the slug, the exoskeleton quickly flashed backward.
Cang Jing didn't even have time to complain about being beaten to the punch. Seeing Gu Qinxue and Xuebai flash back, he immediately drove the wind to retreat as well.
Just as Gu Qinxue's figure stopped dozens of meters away, the rolling flame stuck in the slug, making it screech and thrash, suddenly spread to a meter.
Then, with the sharp tip as the center, it exploded into a crater with a radius of one meter.
A heat wave rolled in the air.
Indistinct flesh flew, the slug painfully opened its mouth, purple foul-smelling liquid flowing out.
Gu Qinxue looked at its saliva with disgust, then locked her gaze on a brown light cluster at the edge of the flesh pit.
The flame extended to wrap the energy crystal, withdrawing it from inside the slug.
The slug, which had been twisting and writhing in pain just moments ago, jerked a few times, then lay completely still on the ground, not moving at all.
The blood-covered energy crystal fell into Gu Qinxue's hand. She tossed it up a few times in front of Cang Jing, then seemed to softly hum.
"Thanks."
Gu Qinxue tilted her head, raised an eyebrow, and said coolly.
Cang Jing realized he'd been cut off, his face contorting as he gritted his teeth, his eyes particularly aggrieved as he nodded, forcing himself not to complain.
"We're all schoolmates, no, need, to, thank, me!"
Cang Jing watched Gu Qinxue casually toss the energy crystal to the analyst, his heart filled with regret. Why had he thought to join them!
Completely working for free, sob.
When they finished dealing with the slug and prepared to leave, Sixth Academy was unwilling to go with them.
Before leaving, Cang Jing thought of something and turned back.
"Commander Xie, there's something you might not know."
"Fourth Ring First Academy has somehow gotten an unusual crystal this time. We were originally heading in the same direction, but their monster-drawing ability was extraordinarily strong, with energy bodies all running that way, which is why we changed positions."
"I expect once they've gathered enough points, they'll come to make trouble for you. That energy crystal's enhancement value is a bit suspicious. Anyway, be extra careful."
"Fourth Ring First Academy is just trouble. Let them come, if I don't make Chun Fan kneel down and call me daddy, I'll..."
Zhou Chen's daily routine was complaining to Puluo, and Puluo would seriously listen to his full rant, nodding in full agreement:
"We must show them what we're made of when the time comes!"
Xie Chunshi gave him a glance, and he instantly behaved.
"Let's go."
"Yes, Captain," Zhou Chen straightened up, immediately following.
Seeing the energy crystal land in her team's hands, Chen Sui sat up straight with satisfaction, then stretched her body, briefly saying goodbye to Yan Mingyu.
She returned to her accommodation with peace of mind and slept soundly.
During the night, there was still considerable activity in the energy field. The teachers from the seven academies of the Fourth Star Ring were all watching the light screens. Fourth Ring First Academy caused quite a commotion at night, creating a buzz among their teachers.
Yan Mingyu was tired of sitting and now stood there, listening to the chaotic sounds around, exchanging a glance with the other teachers sent by Star Academy Seven, signaling them to suppress their worries.
The next day, as the sun was about to rise, Chen Sui opened her eyes.
She instinctively rolled over in bed, then keenly noticed something unusual about her body. She raised one arm.
The girl's arm looked extremely thin, but could deliver extraordinary force with one punch.
Beneath the fair skin, something seemed to be circulating and moving.
A sense of irritability inexplicably occupied her mind, like an inflated balloon desperately needing an opening to release air.
Energy gathered abundantly in her body, causing green light points to continuously overflow around her.
When she finished getting ready and went out, she saw staff from the Karma Star energy field management office standing outside her door.
The person held a simple energy detection device, which was pointed at her doorway with readings spiking to the top.
Chen Sui instinctively stood up straight, feeling inexplicably guilty: "Hello."
The staff member looked at the Star Academy Seven uniform she was wearing, his grave expression easing slightly: "Are you the student in the awakening period that Teacher Yan mentioned?"
Chen Sui nodded.
Then she saw the staff member record the data from the instrument, smiling at her: "I mean, the energy fluctuation suddenly alarmed us. Little student, your awakening period is almost over."
Only after walking out did Chen Sui realize that the energy fluctuation alarm wasn't an exaggeration.
From the energy field management office's accommodation outward, plants were growing frantically, even mechanical crevices sprouting various weeds, almost overnight being covered by vegetation.
She looked at her bracelet, the energy fluctuation rising in a curve, seeming about to reach a peak, ready to drop at any moment.
She felt quite excited.
Upon arriving at the Western Wood Crater monitoring point, Yan Mingyu had just finished speaking with a staff member. Seeing her approach, she teasingly patted her shoulder: "Student Chen Sui, your awakening is quite spectacular."
Chen Sui scratched her head, originally to hide her embarrassment, but her hand suddenly inserted into her hair, touching something hard.
Her movement paused, not even having time to respond to Yan Mingyu.
Pinching the cold columnar object in her hair, she suddenly pulled------
"Hiss!" Chen Sui's eyes widened!
She traced her fingers down, shocked to discover it was something like a vine, growing out from deep within her scalp......
Growing out......
A look of shock appeared on Chen Sui's face.
Yan Mingyu watched her suddenly grab a vine, its leaves bending and stretching, as if newly grown.
"This is......" Yan Mingyu released her pulling hand, flicking the vine with her finger, "probably a wood-type spiritual body with special characteristics?"
But even Yan Mingyu herself was somewhat surprised. She had taught many wood-system students, but had never seen anyone who could grow plants on themselves.
Perhaps this was the peculiarity of post-awakening period.
Chen Sui silently buried the vine with her hair, vaguely feeling something was wrong.
Would the person themselves change during the awakening period?
She felt a bit uncomfortable as she searched her body, trying to find any other mutations, but as soon as she sat down with Yan Mingyu and saw the light screen, she completely forgot about it.
After several hours of battle through the night, the school team's points had skyrocketed, temporarily ranking first.
But in the image, the situation wasn't good.
Xie Chunshi, Gu Qinxue, and Zhou Chen were separated from Puluo and Tong Wei, with countless energy bodies between them.
In the black forest formed by the crater, energy bodies frantically gathered in this direction.
Chen Sui frowned.
No wonder the school team's points were so high, with so many energy bodies around... it was too abnormal.
The energy body group wasn't of high level, but one after another, they still took considerable time to process, making it extremely difficult for Tong Wei and Puluo to deal with the situation in front of them.
"How did so many energy bodies appear overnight?"
Chen Sui was puzzled.
Western Wood Crater was once a competition-level energy field for the Star League Competition. Due to its long-term status as a competition level, high-level energy bodies were almost all killed, downgrading it to S-class. This year it was used as a training match because the number of active energy bodies was slightly higher.
But nobody said there would be this many.
No matter what, a clustering group of energy bodies appearing in the energy field was abnormal.
Hearing this, Yan Mingyu coldly said: "Because someone tampered with it."
Her voice wasn't deliberately lowered, allowing all the other teachers to hear clearly.
The Team Leader of Fourth Ring First Academy suddenly stopped his conversation, turning to look over, his face smiling but his eyes extremely uncomfortable.
"Teacher Yan, that doesn't sound good. The function of that energy crystal is just like that, so how can you say the students handled it poorly?"
Yan Mingyu lifted her eyelids, not even bothering to respond to him.
Chen Sui suddenly thought of something, secretly paying attention. In her peripheral vision, she saw Fourth Ring First Academy's teacher glaring at Yan Mingyu with suppressed anger, yet not daring to cross her.
Fourth Ring First Academy's Team Leader thought maliciously.
Star Academy Seven only benefited from the Song family's influence, but now with the Council taken over by the Gu family, what capital did Star Academy Seven still have?
A declining academy, by what right did they still lord over them!
Fourth Ring First Academy's teachers looked expectantly at the light screen.
But things didn't go as they expected.
The energy tide rapidly surrounded Puluo and Tong Wei. Puluo's spiritual body Little Jin grew enormously, enveloping Tong Wei inside.
Little Jin's surface was slashed by various energy storms, his metallic skin showing signs of peeling, while Tong Wei and Linglingcat were locked together.
Puluo drove his mecha, almost immediately taking crystals and finishing the energy bodies in front of him as soon as Tong Wei reported their energy crystal locations.
But they simply couldn't keep up with the sheer number of energy bodies.
The battlefield was divided, with the output personnel on the other side also surrounded by dense energy bodies.
Lightning and raging fire scorched the entire battlefield.
Low-level energy bodies didn't need to consider energy crystal depletion rates, and Gu Qinxue and Zhou Chen simply burned and struck directly.
Energy crystals were scattered everywhere.
Yet they still couldn't find an exit.
Puluo's attention was raised to the extreme. Prolonged rapid combat and spiritual body resonance had already made him somewhat fatigued, and Little Jin's injuries further increased the spiritual threshold burden.
His movements gradually slowed from their initial swiftness.
"Puluo," Tong Wei called nervously.
As Puluo was pulling his energy blade from inside an energy body, unexpectedly, a black, ghost-like shadow suddenly appeared behind him.
Before he could turn around, the black shadow had a light cluster in hand, wrapped in black gas, which struck toward Puluo with a "puff."
A layer of metal shell rose from Puluo's back, attempting to block the black light cluster, but when the black gas touched the metal, it immediately made a hissing corrosion sound.
The metal shell's surface was corroded into a circular hole, and the black gas passed through, entering the mecha.
The light-looking ball of black gas, upon entering the mecha, exploded with enormous pushing force.
Puluo was thrown to the ground by the black gas, which rolled over him, slamming him down hard several times.
The mecha hitting the ground made quite a commotion, immediately drawing the attention of the other three.
Zhou Chen was the first to utter a profanity.
"Does Fourth Ring First Academy want to die?"
He wasn't speaking in his usual flippant tone, but was extremely serious, the veins on the back of his hand holding the lightning whip bulging, his eyes burning with anger.
Gu Qinxue wasn't blinded by anger. Seeing Puluo thrown aside and Little Jin trying to save his master, thus exposing Tong Wei's position, with the ghostly shadow rushing toward Tong Wei, a flash of realization crossed her mind, instantly understanding those people's plan.
"Not good, Tong Wei!!"
Gu Qinxue shouted.
Tong Wei instinctively controlled Linglingcat, which floated with its long tail creating circles of energy behind it, light waves surrounding it, throwing them toward the black shadow.
Three balls of black gas floated around the black shadow, immediately shattering the energy circles, then rapidly approaching, raising its hand to finish off Linglingcat.
Gu Qinxue's expression rarely showed urgency.
The Fourth Ring First Academy team, observing secretly, saw their goal about to be achieved and brightened with joy.
While Puluo painfully supported himself up, trying to shield the analyst from the attack.
Everyone's expressions froze in that moment.
Both Yan Mingyu and Chen Sui held their breath.
Inside the monitoring point, all the people from Star Academy Seven and Fourth Ring First Academy anxiously watched this scene.
The room fell into complete silence.
"Mist."
A deep, almost inaudible voice briefly sounded.
In the energy field, the intense atmosphere suddenly spread after a second's pause.
Fourth Ring First Academy's people felt their breath stop momentarily, a force being drawn away.
The air became extremely dry.
The flowing wind could easily cut through skin.
The temperature plummeted.
A storm-brewing momentum spread around.
In the brief time when everything paused.
Frosty air surged.
Using the black shadow in front of Tong Wei as a node, a layer of blue ethereal light covered its surface, completely freezing the black shadow and black light cluster in frost.
It didn't end there, the frost's range continued to spread.
The surging energy tide had its energy particles suppressed by an even stronger energy.
The frozen area radiated outward.
A group of energy bodies, like ice sculptures, showed terrified expressions, completely preserved in the ice.
On the other side, Xie Chunshi, positioned among the crowd, lowered his finger, looking into the distance.
Puluo received the instruction, quickly supporting his injured body to get up from the ground.
Before Fourth Ring First Academy's people could react, metal spikes gathered in his hand, carrying a golden energy, forcefully stabbing into the black shadow's ice sculpture.
"Wait!!"
Chun Fan came to his senses, his smile instantly stiffening. Seeing this scene, he cried out in horror, his heart gripped by fear and cowardice.
However, he wasn't as fast as Puluo.
As the metal entered the ice sculpture, countless ice spikes suddenly grew out.
The black shadow was completely pierced by ten thousand spikes, the ice sculpture shattering into ice chips.
A residual image was repelled, returning to Chun Fan's spiritual threshold like a stream of light.
A black crystal, covered in injuries, fell with the ice chips, rolling on the ground.
"Ah!!!"
Chun Fan, who had just cried out, suddenly fell to his knees in pain, letting out a miserable scream.
The feeling of his spiritual threshold shattering felt like being torn apart, making him endure the taste of being backlashed by the energy crystal. The energy particles in his spiritual threshold collided with his body, the core crystal in his spiritual threshold was injured, and the depletion rate instantly soared.
Various pains made Chun Fan bite down hard, not even noticing when he bit his tongue.
Fourth Ring First Academy's other people immediately surrounded him, with another output standing out, glaring angrily at Star Academy Seven, about to speak.
Xie Chunshi's calm gaze looked over, cold and serene, as if looking at a lifeless object.
He slowly opened his lips, saying with absolute clarity: "Break."
The ice sculptures enclosing the energy tide around them shattered at his command.
"Crack."
One after another, distinct cracking sounds were incredibly clear, with tremendous energy dispersing in the air.
Along with the fragments of the frozen corpses, crystals with extremely high depletion rates fell everywhere.
Fourth Ring First Academy witnessed this scene, everyone timidly stepping back, silently swallowing all sounds, just surrounding their Team Leader.
Yan Mingyu released her tightly gripped chair, curling her fingers a few times.
Outside the field, Fourth Ring First Academy's teachers' faces darkened.
The Team Leader turned, glaring angrily at Yan Mingyu.
"Teacher Yan, your school team openly violates the training match regulations by attacking teammates. Is this the education of your esteemed school?"
"Or does Zhu Jing Fu think no one in the Fourth Star Ring can compare, wanting to dominate and suppress others?"
Yan Mingyu's eyes flashed with coldness, making her laugh with anger.
Their infantry had also suffered significant injuries.
The spiritual bodies had a high depletion rate from protecting the analyst.
She wouldn't let the infantry continue in the training match.
The issue of Star Academy Seven being surrounded by energy bodies wasn't resolved, and Yan Mingyu hadn't even settled accounts with Fourth Ring First Academy, when these people shamelessly turned the tables.
"I've noticed that over the years, Fourth Ring First Academy has little ability but great audacity."
Yan Mingyu's expression turned cold, an inexplicable pressure spreading from her.
Chen Sui, sitting to the side, suffered undeserved calamity. The vine she had just managed to suppress suddenly sprang up in alarm, sticking up on her forehead.
She silently put her hand on it to press it down.
Fourth Ring First Academy's Team Leader was intimidated but unwilling to appear too submissive, forcing himself to say: "The fact that Xie Chunshi injured Chun Fan's summoned body is undeniable!"
"Fourth Ring First Academy allowed a summoned body to harm fellow students, and you don't expect them to retaliate? Is there such reasoning?"
Yan Mingyu's eyes were deep, her voice cold.
But unexpectedly, Fourth Ring First Academy's teacher could be even more shameless.
"Aren't Student Puluo and Student Tong Wei unharmed? Besides, Chun Fan obtained this crystal not long ago and couldn't fully control it, which scared the Star Academy Seven students, but," his tone shifted, "how could Star Academy Seven treat a fellow student's summoned body this way? With the summoned body damaged, Chun Fan's spiritual threshold suffered great harm. Doesn't Teacher Yan think your academy's school team lacks restraint and completely disregards the rules?"
This was technically phrased.
First, your two Star Academy Seven students weren't injured, right? Our Team Leader is the one who was hurt.
Second, the summoned body attacking Star Academy Seven wasn't what we wanted, it was just a new summoned body that the Team Leader had difficulty controlling.
Yan Mingyu's lips twisted, "I don't think so. I think they did a great job. An uncontrolled summoned body, if left unchecked, would only cause greater danger. Zhu Jing Fu, considering we've been neighbors for so long, helped resolve this danger. Teacher He......"
She suddenly turned her head, her gaze becoming extremely cold, "No need to thank us."
Fourth Ring First Academy's Team Leader stepped forward angrily, when a giant beast figure suddenly appeared behind Yan Mingyu, frightening everyone, immediately making them retreat.
"You......"
Chen Sui had been sitting there for a long time without moving, but since the battle began, she felt she could discern something.
She unconsciously calculated the speed of energy bodies' movements. Energy fluctuations in her eyes divided into various color blocks, like a clear palette, every color and concentration clearly visible.
The black ghostly summoned body had a dense black paint on it, which, compared to the interstellar energy manual, was confirmed as a rare attribute type.
Chen Sui instinctively compared the depth, able to discern that type of attribute.
Hearing the argument between Yan Mingyu and Fourth Ring First Academy's Team Leader, when the latter was choked with anger, she suddenly spoke up, adding fuel to the fire.
"Dark attribute crystal, attack 75, defense 45, rare attribute: manipulation 53, concealment 85, prototype shadow snake, with the ability to attract energy bodies to follow, control energy particles, establish energy anchor points to allow following energy bodies as vanguards, capture prey."
"This is an A+ level dual rare attribute energy crystal, right?"
Manipulation is a variant of higher control, allowing spiritual bodies of lower or equal levels to manipulate other spiritual bodies.
But some low-level energy crystals carry special manipulation attributes, able to fake this 'following' power, making energy bodies move according to targets.
Chen Sui guessed that initially, Fourth Ring First Academy's anchor point was on the school team, using manipulation to gather a batch of energy bodies to eliminate them and gain enough points, then placing the anchor point on Tong Wei, attempting to use the energy bodies to eliminate her.
Once the energy crystal's data was revealed, Fourth Ring First Academy's teachers' faces cracked, facing Yan Mingyu's darkened expression and the increasingly oppressive energy field around.
Fourth Ring First Academy's teacher bit his lip, still trying to forcefully save face, the words escaping before his brain could process.
"This energy crystal was just accidentally obtained. What rare attribute? How would the school team's analyst know?"
Hearing this, Yan Mingyu laughed coldly, her lips curving, sweeping him a glance like looking at an idiot: "Fourth Ring First Academy is truly foolish from top to bottom. Daring to bring a crystal to the training match without even understanding its attributes. Is it us not following the Star Interstellar Energy Field Competition Rules, or Fourth Ring First Academy? You'd better think carefully."
Fourth Ring First Academy's teacher's expression suddenly froze. When he realized what he had said, a chill inexplicably crept up his back.
According to the "Star Alliance Energy Field Competition Rules."
For any energy crystal usage, the analyst must clearly analyze the data, edit the process and upload it, ensuring it's personally analyzed by the participating analyst, with an error value within 5% of the energy crystal's actual attributes to qualify for participation.
If the analyst himself doesn't know the crystal's manipulation attribute, the error value is definitely outside 5%.
So, either Fourth Ring First Academy used this crystal in the competition through irregular means, or the Western Wood Crater energy field detection office violated regulations.
The people at the energy field monitoring station certainly wouldn't take the blame for Fourth Ring First Academy.
Upon hearing such words, they immediately reported to the person in charge.
Noticing the staff members' suspicious looks, Teacher He finally realized he had misspoken.
"I misspoke momentarily. What I meant was, how would kids know how to use the manipulation attribute? They definitely don't have enough control over the crystal, which caused the misunderstanding."
But Yan Mingyu clearly wouldn't let it go easily.
"Misunderstanding or not, let's wait for the monitoring station's inspection. I'm also curious to know how your school's analyst, with such a spiritual threshold value, had the ability to analyze an A+ level rare attribute crystal."
Rare attributes add another level of difficulty to crystal analysis. An A+ level crystal requires an analyst with a spiritual threshold value above 70, and dual rare attributes require above 75. Fourth Ring First Academy's analyst's value isn't sufficient.
Teacher He's expression froze, and not just him; behind him, the other teachers from Fourth Ring First Academy all changed their expressions.