Even though they had prepared themselves mentally, no one had expected the trial to be this difficult. It had not even truly begun, yet everyone had already been stopped outside the layers of cloud, trapped between advancing and retreating.
"I wonder how Duan Xiaojian is doing."
Xiao Xiao suddenly put away his counting rods and looked down at the churning sea of clouds beneath them. "We need to know what's happening below before we can make further plans."
It took Zheng Qing only a second to realize that the wizard who had been the first to charge into the clouds was Duan Xiaojian! He did not know whether to praise his courage, lament his recklessness, or mourn his terrible luck.
While the hunters of the You Zui Hunting Team hesitated, several more young wizards bravely folded their wings and plunged headfirst into the anvil-shaped gray-black cumulonimbus clouds below.
Yet aside from the slender bolts of lightning and roiling clouds, the onlookers gained no more useful information. They could not even discern a pattern to the lightning—it seemed that any foreign object entering the clouds would be attacked.
"I have a lightning-proof robe. If only the school had allowed us to bring it."
"Heh, the trial is meant to test our adaptability... If we could bring whatever we wanted, what would be the point of the test?"
"You're so objective and rational. Then tell us what we should do."
"Does anyone know magic that can avoid lightning?"
Hearing that, Zheng Qing scratched at his ear and shook his head slightly to himself, withdrawing his attention. He had just been eavesdropping on the other teams' discussions. Almost everyone had the same idea—use magic or potions to evade the lightning strikes.
But just as everyone knew the Philosopher's Stone could grant immortality, while