Chương 26: Blazing White Flame

"What's wrong? Annoyed watching that Consortium prince steal the spotlight?" Just as the eyes of the entire arena were fixed on Cecilia slowly walking toward the martial stage, a heavy hand—feeling as dense as a hydraulic press—suddenly clamped down on Rowan's shoulder. Accompanied by the weight was an intense, rugged smell mixing sweat and magitech fluid. Rowan didn't turn his head. Beneath his hood, the corners of his mouth simply curled up slightly.

"I was just wondering if the idiotic automated reply on someone's terminal—'I'm in closed-door training, don't bother messaging me, just sit there and panic'—was going to be his final dying words on Terra.

"I even started calculating which scrap yard I should sell those secondhand parts in your basement to if I didn't see you this weekend."

"Bullshit! I'm too stubborn to die!" Grinning with a mouthful of stark white teeth, Rad squeezed his way over from the crowd of commoner students behind Rowan. Sensing the highly aggressive, oppressive aura radiating from him, the surrounding students subconsciously stepped back to give him room. Rowan turned his head, his gaze sweeping up and down Rad's frame. A flash of poorly concealed surprise and joy crossed his eyes. Right now, Rad's aura had undergone a terrifying metamorphosis.

In the past, although Rad was built like a giant bear, the connection point between his rugged D2-grade magitech right arm and his flesh was always inflamed and red—a sign of constant rejection, looking exactly like a piece of scrap iron forcefully shoved into meat. But now, the skin on his exposed, thick neck and arm was faintly radiating a dark-gold metallic sheen. The junction where flesh met cybernetics appeared to be seamlessly fusing together.

Just standing there, his breathing sounded as if a miniature blast furnace were operating within his chest cavity.

"Thanks, brother. That meat... it was an absolute miracle." Rad dropped his usual cynical grin. Leaning in close, he spoke into Rowan's ear in an incredibly low voice meant only for the two of them. When he cultivated the Heavy Metal Body Refinement Art, the massive, gentle life-mana contained within that chunk of mid-tier Tier 1 Rock-Scaled Giant Crocodile meat had stubbornly shielded his internal organs. Only he knew the truth.

Last night, when the heavy metal toxins scoured his bones like ten thousand venomous insects devouring his heart, if it hadn't been for that continuous stream of life mana radiating from his stomach to protect his cardiovascular system, he absolutely would not be standing here in one piece today.

"As long as you're alive." Rowan extended a fist and lightly punched Rad's pectoral muscle, which felt as hard as synthetic alloy. Returning his gaze to the stage, he said, "Save your strength. Go up there later and show me the true power of a Martial Artist. Right now, enjoy the show." Up on the martial stage, the examiner expressionlessly punched a string of commands into the control console and pressed a prominent red "Reset" button.

Accompanied by a low, dense hum of magitech energy, the dummy—which had just been dented deeply by Julian's exoskeleton punch—began to undergo rapid changes. The wildly expensive "Memory Magitech Liquid Polymer" making up the dummy's middle layer seemed to possess a life of its own. It began to writhe and self-repair like living flesh. In a mere three to five seconds, the horrifying dent was filled in. The scorched black marks flaked off like a snake shedding its skin.

In the blink of an eye, the dummy was restored to a pristine, flawlessly smooth state, as if the terrifying 1100-point strike had never even happened. This was the value of a piece of equipment costing hundreds of thousands of Terra Credits. It was specifically designed to measure the absolute destructive limit of the D1-grade (Single-Phase). As long as the internal sensor core wasn't destroyed, the outer armor could regenerate infinitely. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to the original site for the genuine story. As for the rules permitting the use of magitech weapons, they were strictly capped at D2-grade and below. Common sense dictated that even if a Single-Phase supernatural exerted every last drop from their crystal core, they could at most unleash half the power of a D2 weapon, making it impossible to cause irreversible damage to the dummy.

"Next. Cecilia." With the examiner's confirmation, Cecilia stood firm in front of the dummy. She possessed brilliant, sun-gold hair, and her devastatingly cold, azure eyes held absolutely zero emotional fluctuation. Wearing her pristine school uniform, she radiated a freezing, aloof aura that practically screamed do not approach. The students below the stage subconsciously held their breath. BOOM—! There was no frost. There was no cold air.

Deep beneath Cecilia's pale collarbone, her Source Crystal Core vibrated violently. What erupted was absolutely not the spectral blue of the water element, but an agonizingly piercing, blazing white that felt as if it could instantly ignite a retina! The moisture in the surrounding air was instantly and completely vaporized. The temperature within the arena spiked terrifyingly in a sheer cliff-drop trajectory.

The students in the front row even caught the faint, nauseating stench of scorched protein—like burning hair—and stumbled backward in terror.

"What a powerful mana resonance!" An involuntary gasp of disbelief rippled through the crowd. Cecilia ignored the commotion. She didn't rely on the kinetic amplification of a magitech exoskeleton like Julian did. She merely, exceptionally calmly, raised her slender right hand and violently clenched her fingers into a fist. Peak D1-grade Fire-Element Spell — [Blazing White Fire Ring]!

A shockwave of blazing white flame, compressed to the absolute limit, erupted like an enraged fire dragon finally breaking free from its cage. Carrying a heat capable of incinerating everything in its path, it slammed viciously into the dummy's chest! CRACK— HISSSSS—! The dummy's outermost Mimetic Mana Shield couldn't even hold for half a second before shattering with the agonizing wail of breaking glass.

Immediately following, the bionic liquid armor in the middle layer warped and boiled rapidly under the extreme heat. It underwent massive carbonization, leaving behind a horrifying, scorched-black meltdown crater over half a meter in diameter! The red numbers on the giant screen spun frantically, blurring into an unreadable mess. Finally, accompanied by a crisp system chime, the numbers locked onto a height that made everyone's scalp tingle with numbness. [Comprehensive Rating: 1268 Points!] Dead silence.

You could hear a pin drop in the arena. Sitting in the rest area, Julian—who had been resting with his eyes closed—snapped his eyes open. He stared dead at the number on the screen. His handsome face, which had maintained an elegant and composed facade until now, finally darkened completely. Deep in his eyes, a highly dangerous, intensely wary spark of fire flickered.

As someone who was also hiding a fire-element trump card, Julian knew better than anyone else: to hit 1268 points relying purely on spell control without the aid of an exoskeleton... this woman had reached an absolutely perverted level of mastery.

"Is the record broken?" On stage, Cecilia slowly retracted her hand. The blazing white flame dancing on her fingertips extinguished instantly. Her voice remained as cold as ten-thousand-year-old ice, acting as if that berserk, volcanic eruption of a strike had absolutely nothing to do with her. The examiner looked at the data on the console, his voice tinged with shock.

"Broken... It's broken. You've broken the highest Single-Phase record of 1239 points set two years ago by Seraphina."

"Good." Cecilia merely nodded slightly, utterly impassive. She didn't even spare a single glance at her remaining two attack attempts, nor did she care about the fanatic or awe-struck gazes from the crowd below. She turned and walked off the stage as if she had just completed an utterly trivial chore. Watching her tall, icy silhouette, Rad leaned close to Rowan's ear. He lowered his voice, his tone carrying a trace of mystery.

"Do you know who that 'Seraphina' the examiner just mentioned is? That's her biological older sister. Two years ago, she was the absolute myth of West Point High. Back then, she single-handedly suppressed every peer in the Consortium circles so hard they couldn't even lift their heads."

"If she's a myth, why haven't I ever seen her name in the school journals?" Rowan raised an eyebrow, catching the inconsistency.

"Because she vanished. Evaporated from the face of the earth." Rad's voice dropped even lower, carrying a hint of dread toward the unknown.

"The Heidrich family probably wanted to prevent a scandal, so they colluded with the other Consortium families to lock down the information. But I heard from scavengers in the underhive—the ones who run black-market goods deep in the pollution zones—that her sister apparently made contact with some 'Cult' that is absolutely taboo. She was secretly disposed of directly by the highest echelons of the Federation Military." Rad looked at Cecilia's retreating back and curled his lip.

"This woman acts like a block of ice all day, but every time she strikes, it's a lethal, desperate killing move. She's pushing herself this hard probably just to prove to her family that she's more valuable than the sister who touched the taboo." Rowan nodded thoughtfully, silently committing this lethal piece of intelligence to memory.

It seemed that in this city monopolized by magitech and Consortiums, even if you were a once-in-a-century genius, the moment you crossed the rulers' red line, you would instantly be reduced to erased ashes.

"Next. Simon." Accompanied by the examiner's call, the grim atmosphere in the arena was slightly diluted. A boy wearing heavy, black-rimmed glasses, sporting hair that looked like a bird's nest, and clutching an electronic datapad glowing with blue light, hurried anxiously onto the stage.