Even after the Taotie escaped, the fire continued to spread inwards.
However, He Piaojian did not respond, but instead pointed the tip of his sword at Fan Daoyi.
His current state is definitely not right.
That seemingly despicable appearance was now filled with a sharp edge, and a murderous aura suddenly appeared.
"It seems he's not completely abnormal." Fan Daoyi noticed that He Piaojian wasn't in a hurry at the moment and even took the initiative to move into his attack range.
"Is this a side effect of [One Heart of the Sword]? No wonder he has this ability, yet his longsword is controlled by Qian Heaven."
One Heart of the Sword, man and sword are one. At this moment, He Piaojian's humanity has been overtaken by his Sword Heart. He is the swordsman, and also the sword itself.
"Come back. You're not a sword; can you influence him based on your subjective opinions?"
The longsword trembled in He Piaojian's hand, and then gradually disappeared from the blade.
He could temporarily strip He Piaojian of this talent to bring him back to his senses, but how would he explain his awakening?
Fan Daoyi sidestepped He Piaojian's bare-handed attack. In his state of perfect harmony with the sword, even the wind from his fists was sword energy, and he did not need the sword's assistance.
"Forget it, any excuse can fool this idiot."
A perfunctory excuse, delivered with a resounding slap, struck He Piaojian's right cheek.
Having had his [One Heart of the Sword] ability stolen in that instant, He Piaojian, whose face was slapped to the side, was now completely bewildered.
Before he could fully react, he returned the [One Heart of the Sword] sword, put on a worried expression, and asked, "He Piaojian, are you awake?"
He Piaojian turned around, his head still dazed, clutching his half-reddened face, his mind buzzing.
"It hurts..." After a long while, he finally uttered a single word.
"Hmm, it seems he's awake now." Fan Daoyi nodded slightly.
"I..." He Piaojian felt a pang of self-reproach. Looking at the surrounding flames and the marks left by sword strikes, he immediately turned to Fan Daoyi anxiously, "Are you alright?"
"It's alright. My Teleportation ability has returned after Taotie left. You can't hit me even when you're out of control."
"That's good." He Piaojian was relieved, but still a little puzzled. "He clearly had control over the time he held the sword, yet this still happened, almost becoming another big problem..."
"Perhaps it's related to those puppets; it seems that mental abilities are your weakness." He stated what he had observed, using this as an excuse.
"When your sword pierced the paper figure, a thread simultaneously bound you. I wonder if you felt anything unusual."
He Piaojian nodded as he recalled that time.
He did feel a momentary discomfort, which is why he instantly abandoned his sword and retreated.
"However, at that time your [Being Shameless Is Invincible] talent happened to be displayed, which offset part of the puppet strings, but the control of the puppet strings still remained."
A portion of humanity was diverted to resist the puppet's control, and Sword Heart seized the opportunity at that moment.
He Piaojian pondered deeply; this was a direction he had never considered before.
"It seems I need to find an opportunity to go to Azure Dragon for training in resisting mental abilities." He agreed with this statement.
Fan Daoyi's gaze shifted to the pile of mud figures on the ground. "If this fire can't be stopped, what will happen to the more than one hundred students?"
He Piaojian glanced at it briefly. "The mud is all over your body, so you can't pull it off right away. Wait for the flames to dry the mud, then you can break it up."
"Won't you suffocate like this?"
Fan Daoyi genuinely believed that He Piaojian's idea was unacceptable.
He Piaojian stared at the clay sculpture, lost in thought.
The meat was wrapped in mud...
"Wow, beggar's chicken." He suddenly came to his senses and exclaimed.
"Huh?" Fan Daoyi couldn't keep up with He Piaojian's train of thought at all.
However, his thought process isn't exactly normal either.
Beggar's chicken... It seems to be a dish in common knowledge, but I've never tried it. It sounds like it would taste better than meat worms cooked in hot pot.
Lost in thought, he turned to He Piaojian and asked, "When are we going to give it a try?"
"Let's wait until the matter is reported and registered before we do anything else. I Dao Yi restaurant that makes pretty good beggar's chicken."
"Stop with the beggar's chicken! Can't you two do something useful right now?!"
From afar, through the wall of fire, came an urgent roar. Then came another announcement: "In this trial, the students are reborn!"
As the words fell.
Beep!
A hand pierced through the mud.
Then came more sounds of the earth breaking through the crust.
The first thing they did after regaining consciousness and hatching was to roll around on the ground without any regard for their appearance. "It's so hot! It's almost cooked! It's almost cooked!"
"This all happened afterward, why did you only arrive now?"
He Piaojian saw a figure break through the mountains and pass through the wall of fire, followed by several teachers who went forward to treat the injured students.
After confirming there were no deaths, Principal Fu breathed a sigh of relief, "They sealed off the space, which took some effort. Besides, you're here, so you have confidence in your abilities."
The sealed-off space further provided strong evidence that Fan Daoyi's Teleportation ability was ineffective.
"This is a dereliction of duty on your part. If something really goes wrong, you'll lose your position as principal."
"Fortunately, nothing happened, but are you just going to let them be covered in mud and roasted by fire like that?"
"Don't you know what beggar's chicken is? It won't burn when roasted, and the meat inside is tender."
"What the hell?! Are they beggar's chickens?!" Principal Fu's tone was filled with shock and accusation.
The two of them started bickering again, exchanging words back and forth.
In the end, He Piaojian was defeated because he was in the wrong.
He Piaojian cast a pleading look at Fan Daoyi: "Dao Yi, quick, attack him!"
Fan Daoyi chimed in, "Isn't the teacher leading this team capable of spatial abilities? If he were really in a hurry, he wouldn't have waited until everything was over to come over."
"Mmm, yes, yes," He Piaojian chimed in, arms crossed, "Too lax."
"With such a slow processing speed, if something goes wrong, what we'll see won't be 'beggar's chicken,' but corpses all over the place."
He Piaojian continued his commentary, "Yes, yes, it's really unreliable."
While responding to the principal, he also gave He Piaojian a warning. "You've said so much because you trust him too much. With his personality, if left unchecked, he could make a big mistake."
"Hmm... hmm?" He Piaojian had been nodding vigorously in response, suddenly looked up. "What, is this about me? Weren't you arguing with Fu Laodeng?"
Fan Daoyi glanced at He Piaojian indifferently. "Then tell me, if you had lost control this time and we hadn't been able to stop it in time, what do you think the situation would have been like here?"
He Piaojian had nothing to say and remained silent.
Even Principal Fu was speechless in front of Fan Daoyi, since everything Fan said made perfect sense.
Indeed, the secret realm sensed something was wrong from the beginning, but because of their trust in He Piaojian's strength, they weren't too anxious to deal with the situation.
After the spatial anomalies subsided, thinking that He Piaojian had already dealt with the matter, I leisurely entered the secret realm.
I only started to get a little anxious when I slowly arrived at the scene and heard the students discussing whether they should eat beggar's chicken later.
His expression was serious as he bowed his head apologetically to Fan Daoyi: "I'm sorry, this was indeed my negligence."
He Piaojian was pleased with himself. He patted the Principal Fu the shoulder and said to him in his usual cheeky tone, "Not bad, it's good to admit your mistakes and correct them."