"Fierce Wave! Flood Roll!"
No one knew who had shouted from outside the arena, but they learned the answer the next moment.
A torrent descended from the sky. Fierce Wave covered an even wider area than Fierce Fist, and this strike extinguished all the fiercely burning crimson Li Fire, turning it into a hazy cloud of steam.
"Quick, get in there and save them!"
Yet as soon as Wei Rong approached Ding Yumian and Lu Ling with a Healing Mage, he saw something utterly unexpected.
Beneath a faint golden glow, Ding Yumian sat on the ground, with that kid Lu Ling supporting her back. Their posture at that moment was decidedly intimate...
Neither of them showed any signs of injury, though their clothing was slightly damaged.
Soon, once most of the mist had cleared, the students in the stands gritted their teeth, their faces filled with anger.
"Holy shit!"
"What the hell is that new guy doing?! How dare he get so close to my goddess!"
"Why is my goddess lying so comfortably in his arms?! Somebody help!"
"His clothes!!!!"
"..."
For a moment, the men of the Fire Institute were up in arms. In fact, the women were somewhat unhappy too.
Ding Yumian was beautiful, sure... but Lu Ling was also an incredibly handsome guy with both looks and strength! The Fire Element had finally gained another good-looking guy, yet the scene before them seemed to be telling them something.
Lu Ling was interested in Ding Yumian. He had come here for her.
How infuriating!
With the mist gone, the two were naturally laid bare before everyone's eyes. Ding Yumian blushed a little and hurriedly stood up.
"You two... are all right?"
Wei Rong looked at them dubiously.
Wrapped in Lu Ling's black jacket, Ding Yumian shook her head and gave Wei Rong a reassuring look.
"Teacher, I'm fine. He didn't hurt me."
Hearing this, Wei Rong relaxed as well.
Although he was usually strict and never spared his students a tongue-lashing, he was a teacher, after all. He would never allow his students to be injured.
"To be safe, let the Healing Mage take a look."
"Mm."
Ding Yumian nodded and left with the Healing Mage.
Only Wei Rong and Lu Ling remained in the arena.
"Well, Director Wei?" Lu Ling chuckled, giving the mistaken impression that he was smugly pleased with himself.
It was as though he were answering the earlier verdict: he was no mere pretty vase raised on countless resources.
After witnessing Lu Ling's strength, Wei Rong no longer had any negative impression of him.
Those with strength naturally received preferential treatment from him. That was the rule of this world! The law of the strong devouring the weak!
Still, he snorted coldly and said:
"Hmph. A challenge is only a spar. Stop once the point is made. Young people shouldn't be so rash."
"But I didn't hurt anyone, did I? She doesn't have a single wound on her." Looking utterly innocent, Lu Ling loudly protested the injustice.
"Lu Ling wins!" Wei Rong ignored him, glanced at the students nearby, and announced the result loudly.
Wei Rong was about to leave the stage and return to the judges' seats when a voice sounded behind him.
"Teacher, can I keep challenging people now?"
"You still want to challenge someone?" Wei Rong turned back in surprise.
Lu Ling's performance just now had been outstanding. The move of casting intermediate Fire Element magic at close range alone had made Wei Rong see him in a new light.
Mages had frail bodies, and few chose to cast magic at close range. That was what had surprised him.
A seemingly impractical fighting style demonstrated precisely how exceptional Lu Ling was in certain respects. Those mysterious crimson-gold flames, for instance, granted him extremely high fire resistance. They had to be a fire seed of exceptionally high quality.
A newcomer with such considerable strength naturally deserved more of Wei Rong's attention.
"Yes. If possible, I'd like to do it right now."
Seeing the resolve in his eyes, Wei Rong understood that he was not joking.
Lu Ling... still had strength hidden away?
The previous battle had seemed to last a long time, but it had actually been very brief-almost entirely a one-sided slaughter. As far as his strength went, he probably had indeed not revealed it all.
"Who do you want to challenge?"
"First place."
Hearing this, Wei Rong froze again. This kid really was...
"Hahahahaha!"
"I'd like to see just how high you can fight your way!"
Come on, then. Let's see who holds first place in the Fire Institute!
A refined-looking man in a shirt slowly walked onto the competition stage. Even dressed like a respectable person, he could not conceal his air of flippant disregard.
Looking at the somewhat "disheveled" Lu Ling opposite him, he revealed a contemptuous smile.
"You do have some strength. In terms of your actual ability, you could probably rank in the top fifty. You also just defeated a student in the top hundred.
"But what I want to say is that you're far too arrogant. Within the top ten, even a single rank is a gulf between heaven and earth. You've only beaten one third-rate student, yet you dare challenge me, Dongfang Lie!"
At the end, Dongfang Lie finally delivered his last words as though bestowing charity.
"If you admit defeat now, I can pretend this challenge never happened, and you won't have to make a spectacle of yourself in front of everyone."
First place was... Dongfang Lie?
Wait... if he remembered correctly, Dongfang Lie was still in first place a year or two later!
For a moment, Lu Ling could not wrap his head around it. He really did not know whether to praise Dongfang Lie's exceptional talent or call this bunch from the Fire Institute cripples, letting Dongfang Lie monopolize first place for so long.
"Let's make this quick. This is boring." Lu Ling sighed helplessly.
After confirming that Lu Ling was ready, Wei Rong swept his hand down.
"Begin!"
Seeing that his opponent would not even look him in the eye, Dongfang Lie immediately flared with anger.
"How dare you ignore me! I'll show you why my Dongfang Family is known as a Fire Element family!"
"Fierce Fist, Nine Flood Dragons!"
A ring of flames encircled his fist. Fiery flood dragons could be seen coiling around his arm, vivid and lifelike, seemingly ready to leap forth.
Dongfang Lie punched out, and nine fiery flood dragons spiraled forth. Terrifying fire energy erupted from his body like an explosion reaching its critical point, carrying an unparalleled aura of destruction as they lunged at Lu Ling with all their might, jaws snapping.
Even with the fiery flood dragons right before his eyes, the white-haired youth remained as immovable as if thunder could not shake him.
The next moment, the nine fiery flood dragons engulfed him.
At the sight, half of Dongfang Lie's anger subsided.
Taking it head-on again?!
That guy had done the same thing against Ding Yumian's Groundbreak earlier...
Could he have such high fire resistance that he could even ignore spirit-grade flames?
"Long Zhanye."
A crescent formation over thirty meters in diameter suddenly bloomed at the heart of the burning flames.
"Summoning magic?!" Dongfang Lie raised his guard.
He had not expected his opponent to be a mage with the Summoning System as his secondary cultivation. In that case, the rest of this fight might prove a little troubl-
Bang.
An enormous white dragon claw descended from the sky with a heavy crash, whipping up winds that nearly knocked Dongfang Lie over.
In that instant, his mind stopped working. When the dust cleared, a white dragon over twenty meters tall stood on the competition stage, looking down upon all living beings. The white dragon claw that had just slammed down was only half a meter from Dongfang Lie.
Dongfang Lie's legs went weak, terror filling his face, and he involuntarily sank to both knees.
Had it come just a little closer, he... would have died just now!
This person... was a monster!!
"It's... a dragon!"
In the stands, some were shocked, while others were afraid.
"Lu Ling... wins." Wei Rong swallowed and announced the outcome of the duel with difficulty.
The earlier battle against Ding Yumian had already been spectacular enough, but compared with this white dragon, it was simply playing house... Just who was this person whose transfer Dean Xiao had personally arranged?
"It's White King! White King, who took every department's resources at the freshman assembly a year ago! That's his Summoned Beast!" Someone from Lu Ling's year recognized the distinctive Heavenly Star White Dragon.
The Summoning System... it was him, Lu Ling, who had held on to first place in the Summoning System all this time!
Dongfang Lie smiled self-mockingly. He recognized Lu Ling's dragon, from that street a year ago... There was no shame in losing to someone like this. With the white dragon at his command, he deserved to be number one in the entire university.
"Arrogant and conceited, with poor combat awareness... if everyone in the Fire Element is like this, then you're no different from trash." The Heavenly Star White Dragon dissolved into motes of light and vanished, and Lu Ling left them with words that could be considered an insult.
Yet none of them dared speak, nor did they dare be angry.