Kalina's Wager

"Lin Luoluo, well? Do you dare fight me?"

"Since you're so eager to be beaten by me, I'm ready whenever you are!" Lin Luoluo tensed her little face and replied without showing the slightest weakness.

Even a clay figurine had three parts of temper, much less when Jiang Ruoxue had provoked her again and again!

Did she really think she was a soft persimmon that could be squeezed at will?

"Xiao Bai, get ready to fight!"

Bai Chen's body bounced excitedly, several tentacles waving in the air.

Although, in front of so many people, it was still difficult to use a distinctive ability like Moon Ice Domain.

But against a mere Jiang Ruoxue, Shadow Tentacles and Hardening Skin alone were more than enough!

"Come out, my partner, Cold Moon Fox!"

Jiang Ruoxue gave a sharp cry, and a silver-white magic array spread out beneath her feet. Amid a flare of light, a nimble fox appeared in the open space.

Having now broken through to the Second Tier, Cold Moon Fox had grown from the little thing he had been before into a normal-sized adult.

His body was covered in silver-white fur, reflecting a cool, moonlike sheen in the light filtering down from the top of the mine tunnel.

His lithe, streamlined form held explosive power, while the mysterious blue marking on his forehead gave him an added air of nobility and dashing good looks.

The instant Cold Moon Fox appeared, his icy gaze locked onto Bai Chen not far away.

When enemies met, their eyes burned all the redder!

The humiliation of being whipped into a garbage bin full of rotting, foul-smelling trash surged back into his heart.

For him, with his proud bloodline, it was an utterly shameful disgrace!

Awooo!

A low growl rumbled from his throat, and the temperature of the surrounding air seemed to drop a few degrees.

Seeing this, the Jiang Family guards immediately understood and backed away.

They cleared an open space for Lin Luoluo and Jiang Ruoxue to fight.

A battle was about to erupt.

Yet at that moment, with swords drawn and bows strung, Kalina suddenly strolled over to Jiang Chen's side.

Ignoring the oppressive aura emanating from Mighty General beside Jiang Chen, she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Jiang Chen, do you dare make a wager with me?"

"We'll bet on who wins between Lin Luoluo and Jiang Ruoxue. How about it?"

Jiang Chen's eyebrows shot up when he heard this, and he looked at Kalina as if she were an idiot.

Had this woman gone mad?

He had just heard from Jiang Ruoxue that the girl opposite them, Lin Luoluo, had not only contracted a Slime, a Contract Spirit universally regarded as trash, but also had a disability in her legs.

It was bad enough that Kalina had used a girl like that to humiliate him, but could she really think someone like her had any considerable strength?

Still, since the benefits had been delivered right to his door, he might as well take them.

Jiang Chen sneered inwardly and agreed without hesitation. "Sure. What do you want to bet?"

"How about the operating rights to that shop our two families have been competing for lately?" Kalina opened her mouth like a lion.

The shop they were talking about occupied a prime spot on the commercial street inside Dawnlight Academy.

Its location was excellent, with enormous foot traffic. Thanks to the academy's vast student population, as long as it was run properly, an annual profit of over a million Silver Coins was practically guaranteed.

Recently, both the family backing Kalina and the one backing Jiang Chen had been preparing to open a shop at the academy to sell spiritual materials. Both had used every means at their disposal to secure that shop.

But the academy's leadership had seen how eagerly the two were competing and had raised the price on the spot, driving it higher and higher. As a result, neither had managed to secure it yet.

"Agreed."

Jiang Chen accepted almost without hesitation.

As he saw it, this was a wager he was bound to win.

Kalina had witnessed Lin Luoluo's strength and knew how monstrous her Slime was, so she naturally agreed without hesitation.

She barely managed to keep the smile from spilling onto her face, afraid that Jiang Chen, the sucker, would back out.

Seeing her like this, Jiang Chen still sensed nothing amiss. He assumed she was bluffing, so he snorted coldly, ignored her, and turned his attention back to the open space.

By then, the battle between Lin Luoluo and Jiang Ruoxue had officially begun.

Once the fight started, Jiang Ruoxue did not sweep her opponent aside and claim victory as everyone had imagined. Instead, the battle bogged down into a stalemate.

It had to be said, having someone feed you experience made a world of difference.

Today, Bai Chen and Lin Luoluo had fought almost nonstop along the way, gaining a massive amount of experience.

Yet now, Jiang Ruoxue's Cold Moon Fox had overtaken Bai Chen in level.

After breaking through to the Second Tier, the experience Bai Chen had accumulated earlier had brought him straight to level 13.

Jiang Ruoxue's Cold Moon Fox, meanwhile, had already reached level 17. With an entire team escorting her, she had enjoyed a full set of top-tier training services: "find prey, beat it half-dead, and deliver the finishing blow."

Although that level was somewhat lower than those of the two Jiang Family underlings the pair had just fought, Cold Moon Fox had S-Rank aptitude and Jiang Ruoxue had A-Rank talent. The two complemented each other, and their true strength had already far surpassed those two men.

It was only a fight against an opponent two levels higher. Bai Chen had even defeated an enemy a whole major tier above him before, so naturally he felt no pressure at all.

"Go, Cold Moon Fox, use ice crystals!"

At Jiang Ruoxue's command, Cold Moon Fox leaped nimbly around the battlefield, his form becoming a streak of silver lightning as he darted and dodged across the uneven ground. At the same time, he continuously formed sharp ice crystals in the air.

The crystals shot toward Bai Chen like bullets, tearing through the air with piercing whistles.

Faced with this dense rain of ice crystals, Bai Chen neither dodged nor evaded. A layer of armor black as ink instantly covered his body: it was the skill Hardening Skin.

At the same time, several thick Shadow Tentacles extended from his body and whirled into a black barrier so tight that not even wind could pass through.

"Clang, clang, clang!"

Crisp impacts rang out without end, echoing through the spacious mine tunnel.

Those ice crystals, each capable of piercing a steel plate, shattered with sharp cracks into a skyful of icy fragments when they struck Bai Chen's tentacles and body, as if they had hit the hardest rock. They could not hurt him in the slightest.

Seeing that Bai Chen was so difficult to deal with and that she had not quickly defeated him as she had expected, Jiang Ruoxue's expression turned somewhat ugly.

"Damn it! How is this Slime's defense so high?!"

She held nothing back, deciding to use her trump card.