Awakening, Gloom Wolf Beast!

"Want to flank me from both sides?" Luo Song looked at the two Summoning Element students, contempt filling his eyes.

Mo Fan's two Summoning classmates were truly too naive. They seemed to think that an Intermediate Ice Element Mage could only deal with one of them at a time, leaving the other free to strike from the flank.

In reality, Luo Song had no need to limit himself to Intermediate-Level magic.

The Basic-Level skill Ice Vine swept first across the area around him — its sheer density enough to drastically slow both Summoned Beasts in their tracks.

Immediately after, Luo Song used Earth Wave to reposition to a safer angle, and when the geometry was right, the devastating Ice Lock came crashing down once more.

Ice Lock was clearly no single-target skill. Its massive chains of ice forcibly bound both Summoned Beasts at once, rapidly encasing them in solid ice.

Without much effort at all, Luo Song had dispatched the pair.

"There's only one Summoning Element student left now. I never imagined an Intermediate-Level Mage would show up at the Beast Battle."

"Right — and that last Summoning student is just cannon fodder. There's no way they're beating Luo Song."

"We'd been hoping to get up there and show our stuff, and this guy goes and steals the entire spotlight."

Having eliminated three Summoning Element students, Luo Song turned his gaze to Mo Fan — the only one still standing on stage.

Mo Fan was no fool. He could see plainly that this fat bastard Luo had engineered the whole thing just to make trouble for him.

But Luo Song didn't linger. He stepped down from the stage and walked away.

He had achieved his objective, and he had honored his agreement with Dean Xiao — he had not directly provoked Mo Fan, who was likewise an Intermediate-Level Mage.

The crowd watched him leave of his own accord, thoroughly baffled.

With his strength as an Intermediate-Level Mage, he could have swept all seven Summoning freshmen without breaking a sweat — so why leave the last one standing?

Or maybe the guy had decided a clean sweep was too boring, and had left the final target for the Basic-Level Mages to toy with at their leisure.

"Well — at least he left one."

"We still have a shot. The Bone-Eating Demon's been dealt with; there's nothing left to be afraid of."

"Let's go. We're heading in!"

Li Junwei rose from his seat, shooting a deliberate sidelong glance at Qin Xiao Mian beside him.

Today's undisputed headliner was Luo Song and his Intermediate-Level display — that much was beyond question. But that didn't mean Li Junwei and his group could afford to be swallowed up entirely in that shadow. It was time to move.

"You're going to challenge him?" Qin Xiao Mian looked with mild surprise at the cluster of male classmates who always seemed to orbit around her.

"What's wrong with that?" Li Junwei asked.

"Nothing... nothing at all. Good luck to you." Qin Xiao Mian felt it wasn't her place to say more.

Li Junwei led his teammates toward the arena floor.

At the challenger entrance, students from other departments were already gathered and waiting their turn.

They shared the same thinking as Li Junwei: yes, Intermediate was Intermediate — the fact that someone had advanced so far ahead of the rest was genuinely staggering — but that was no reason for everyone else to just stand around doing nothing.

Breakthroughs were unpredictable. Maybe fighting through this battle was all it would take to brush the threshold of the Intermediate Level.

Every person who had come to Pearl Academy was chasing that threshold. That was the whole point.

"That Luo Song — at least he knew when to back down. But Mo Fan, it's obvious he went out of his way to make trouble for you." Jiang Yunming gave a cold snort.

Luo Song had come to trash the Summoning department's showing. Jiang Yunming had known about the bad blood between Mo Fan and Luo Song since enrollment day.

"I know. But my Summoned Beast..." Mo Fan gave a shrug.

There was nothing he could do about it. His Gloom Wolf Beast was still in deep recovery sleep — he'd essentially been deadweight from the start. Luo Song's scheming had been wasted on an empty target...

*Hm...?*

*It's awake??*

Mo Fan had reached out to his Gloom Wolf Beast almost as an afterthought, expecting nothing — but somehow, at some point, it had already woken up on its own, and it looked remarkably full of energy at that.

"I can't accept this." Hai Dafu ground his teeth.

The others were equally despondent. The Beast Battle was supposed to be the Summoning department's moment — their chance to put their Summoned Beasts on full display and show every other department just how far superior they were. Instead, an Intermediate-Level Mage had waltzed in and humiliated three of them in a single run, reducing the Summoning freshmen from stars to a footnote in an instant.

And that wasn't even the worst of it. Because they had failed to meet the quota set by the school and their teacher, all of the Summoning department's resource allocation for the coming semester would be handed over entirely to Luo Song's Earth Element department.

Pearl Academy's resource pool was substantial — it was precisely why students from elite families clawed and fought to get in. To have half a semester's worth of resources wiped out in a single afternoon was a blow too bitter to swallow.

"Teacher, could we...?" Zheng Bingxiao glanced at Jiang Yunming, then let the sentence die.

Jiang Yunming shook his head. "A student who has already left the stage cannot re-enter. Mo Fan — can you call your Summoned Beast or not? If not, we're done for the day."

"What good would it do even if he could?" Wang Liting snapped, his eyes going red.

"Teacher, can't the school make an exception? My family spent everything they had to help me summon a decent beast. Without the school's cultivation resources, most of us don't stand a chance of reaching the Intermediate Level."

"No exceptions — if you want resources, you earn them yourselves. All right, everyone head back. Today's event is over." Jiang Yunming showed not a trace of sentiment. Rewards and penalties, strictly by the book. "Even accounting for the Intermediate-Level Mage who came in and wiped you out, I'm still not satisfied with your performance. The Beast-Refining Blood goes to Zheng Bingxiao alone."

At those words, the entire Summoning cohort looked ready to weep.

The school's resource allocation was gone. Now their own teacher's award had been cut to a single vial. How was the Summoning department supposed to survive like this?

"Teacher Jiang — I think my Summoned Beast might have woken up."

Mo Fan spoke up.

"Oh?" Jiang Yunming's eyebrow lifted. "Then get up there. Show us something, and the second vial of Beast-Refining Blood is yours."

"The Beast-Refining Blood is exactly what I'm after," Mo Fan said.

"Good. Go on then — win back some face for the Summoning department."

Mo Fan walked slowly toward the Beast Battle stage, reaching out to his Gloom Wolf Beast along the way.

"Our target today is sixteen," he told it.

Zheng Bingxiao had tallied twenty-five. Hai Dafu had managed fifteen. Wang Liting should have had the best numbers of all — but Luo Song had cut him off at seven.

The bar was clear: beat Hai Dafu's fifteen, and the Beast-Refining Blood was his.

**"Awrrrr-OOOOO——————!!!!**"

The Gloom Wolf Beast let out a howl blazing with battle-hunger — its answer to Mo Fan.

Hearing that roar, every note of it alive with fire and spirit, Mo Fan's expression shifted to something close to genuine surprise.

Because riding alongside that howl was the beast's aura — thick, wild, and primal.

That aura...

It looked like sixteen was going to need to be doubled.