"Exactly—having someone like her around makes everyone else of her generation look dull."

"This child will become a Rune Master one day, right?"

"She has to. Letting that kind of talent go to waste would be criminal."

Luo Wei never imagined that the lie she spun to hide the fact she had long since mastered Magic Runes would leave a whole hall of professors sighing with complicated emotion.

Nor could those professors know how many sleepless nights, how many runes she had dismantled and analyzed, to create the outward illusion of "learn it at a glance."

After a while, awe turned to curiosity.

"But why is she carving so many Teleportation Magic Runes?"

"Yeah—everyone else is engraving defensive runes, and she's piling up teleportation arrays. Planning to run?"

"Thinking about escape before the fighting even starts—her mentality's lacking."

"You don't need that many arrays to flee. I think she wants to teleport the monsters away."

"Hahaha, and what good would that do? At that distance they'd be back in seconds."

"True… so is she really planning to bolt?"

That made no sense. Could the girl really be that foolish?

If she ran, what then? Lose the territory and score nothing. Far better to hold until they genuinely couldn't, then hit the necklace button and withdraw.

Prince Alfried was also watching Siria's team in the magic mirror; he had to admit Luo Wei's actions stirred a trace of interest.

A clever child wouldn't choose a dead end. He was certain she had a deeper intent.

What was it?

He watched the girl in the mirror with amused intrigue. It had been a long time since someone actually puzzled him.

More interesting still—she was a student of that same unreadable old man, Asa Morrison.

Two hours blinked past; darkness thickened over the arena.

Siria's team stood outside their hastily thrown‑together house, wands in hand, faces lifted into the misting night rain.

They did not wait long. A swarm of hummingbird hawk moths emerged from the dense rain curtain and dropped a batch of rough‑made scarecrows.

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The scarecrows descended, spacing themselves evenly throughout the territory, standing bolt upright.

In a heartbeat the dark was crowded with hundreds of stiff, uncanny silhouettes.

Even knowing they were only scarecrows, standing among them made the contestants' backs prickle with cold.

Each scarecrow had a faintly glowing Sensor Stone set into its chest. If a scarecrow were attacked or badly damaged, the stone would go dark—its "death."

With the "villagers" in place, the assault by Magic Beasts—or Monsters—wouldn't be far behind.

Luo Wei set Gladys to watch along the wall while she and the others hustled the rain‑soaked scarecrows into the mud house to give them an extra layer of protection.

There was risk: if a single fireball arced in and landed inside, all three hundred scarecrows could burn.

Plenty of teams had considered that, splitting their scarecrows into groups and caching them in multiple spots.

Some teams moved none at all—leaving them scattered in the open and standing in the rain beside them.

Night deepened. A sudden lance of lightning split the sky; the drear wilds flashed corpse‑pale. Spring thunder rolled, crash after crash, as though shattering the vault of heaven.

After a murmured conference, Siria's team split into five posts: Hol held the central mud house; Luo Wei, Gladys, Axina, and Jack each took a cardinal direction.

Hol wanted to trade with Jack; Luo Wei refused.

His earth magic—and iron pot—were only good at close range, and closing with Monsters was dangerous; the dark aura they carried could lure and befog the mind.

Simulated or not, they should treat them like real Monsters.

"Boom—"

Another savage thunderclap slammed down, as if sounding the charge. The pale glare lit the distant tree line—and in that instant of stark clarity a surging black tide rolled nearer, wave after wave swallowing toward their hill.

The rumbling swelled without pause—thunder or trampling impact? The ground began to quake.

Hill shuddering, earth trembling, faces across the arena blanched.

Magic Beasts or Monsters—how could there be so many?

They doubted their own eyes. A beast tide like a black sea—rare even in the Magic Beast Mountains.

Besides, how long would it take the professors to capture that many live Magic Beasts?

Too many. Even deploying them would be a logistical nightmare.

"These aren't Magic Beasts!"

Luo Wei felt the surrounding concentration of dark elements climbing, and far off a familiar fluctuation of magic.

That fluctuation was just like when she carved an Incubation Magic Rune—elements violent, turbulent, unruly.

In a flash she understood. Monsters.

She hadn't expected the round to open with Monsters immediately, no buffer stage. Previous tournaments started with a few Magic Beasts and ramped difficulty.

She'd never competed before, so she couldn't tell the difference between simulated Monsters and real ones.

For a fleeting moment a question flickered—why could simulated Monsters gather dark elements?

No time to dwell.

This was only a competition; the professors wouldn't unleash real Monsters that could kill their own students.

Steadying herself, Luo Wei called out, "Monsters incoming! Remember our tactic—get ready!"

"Yes, Captain!"

The four snapped to full focus on the slope below. Any Monster charging up would not leave intact.

The first wave clawed up the hillside. Close now—they could see their bizarre forms.

Bodies like black ink—no eyes, no nose, only a mouth, shape ceaselessly shifting, like a huge black dog with melting skin: low‑tier Swamp Monsters—Sludge Monsters.

No wonder the approach looked like a black tide. Packed in dense masses, up close they were a slurry of mud and water, scarcely any defined shape.

Sludge Monsters feared fire; flames baked them dry, leaving only brittle clods.

Without needing orders, Luo Wei and her teammates simultaneously poured mana into Burning Magic Runes set in the ground. Walls of fire roared up, incinerating the onrushing Sludge Monsters into oozing piles of scorched muck. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ patreon.com/BZDXG - Unlock a HUGE stash of advance chapters now! Dive deeper into the story ahead of everyone else!

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