Born with Dual Elements!
Mo Fan's classmates — Zhou Min, Zhao Kunsan, Mu Bai, Zhang Xiaohou, Wang Sanpang, and the rest — were frantically rubbing their eyes. It had to be hallucinations from studying too much magic. This wasn't right at all. They needed to get back to school and grind through ten thousand practice papers to calm down. Hallucinations before the college entrance exams were a terrible sign.
A long, long silence fell over the scene.
The moment the Lightning Seal struck, every certainty the crowd had ever held seemed to crumble to dust. For a long while, no one could find their voice.
"Who... who can... who can tell me what exactly... what exactly is going on here?!" The Zhou clan man had also risen from his chair, his gaze sweeping across Bo City's assembled elite — every one of them struck dumb by the Lightning Seal.
Was no one going to explain? Had he gone blind all by himself?
"Intermediate-Level Mage — he's an Intermediate-Level Mage, he must have awakened a second element, that's the only explanation!" Xue Musheng said in a voice he himself could barely believe.
"No." At that moment, the most authoritative figure present — Principal Zhu — spoke up.
Every eye turned to him. They trusted that only someone of Principal Zhu's standing and experience could make sense of the impossible sight before them.
"He is still a Basic-Level Mage." Principal Zhu said it with complete certainty.
"Then how could he possibly also have Lightning Element..."
Principal Zhu drew a slow, deep breath. Even from a distance, anyone could see how deeply shaken he was — shaken enough that the muscles in his face were trembling, shaken enough that he had to steady himself before he could go on.
"Born with Dual Elements. He — Mo Fan is born with... born with Dual Elements!" At last, Principal Zhu voiced the one conclusion he had reached through all his shock.
Yes — it had to be. Born with Dual Elements.
There was no way this student's cultivation had reached the Intermediate level. The only possible explanation for him wielding Lightning Seal was that he had been born with Dual Elements.
He had awakened Fire — and Lightning besides.
This student — born within the walls of Tianlan Magic High School — was among the most vanishingly rare beings in the world: someone born with Dual Elements.
"Born with Dual Elements — my God, do people like that actually exist?"
"I... I don't even know what to say anymore."
"Xue... Xue Musheng — isn't Mo Fan your student? Weren't you the one who oversaw his Awakening?" Chen Weiliang, the dean of discipline, asked in a stupor, turning to Xue Musheng beside him.
"I was, but... but I clearly remember he only had Fire Element." Xue Musheng strained as hard as he could to recall that day, but the memory simply wouldn't come.
The sheer magnitude of it had made everyone forget this was supposed to be a duel between young mages. The sensation of Dual Elements had made everyone forget that today's guest of honor was supposed to be Yu'ang at his Coming-of-Age Ceremony. Tonight, no one in that hall could outshine Mo Fan — no one could have made a more thunderous entrance than the boy who had just revealed his Dual Elements to the world.
"This kid — the military claims him! Anyone who dares compete, I will raid their home personally!" Zhankong, the military's leader, had already leapt to his feet.
The great Zhankong — who in all of Bo City had he ever feared? Let anyone dare step forward to vie for this Dual Elements boy, and he would crush them where they stood.
*What the hell — dragged to this southern backwater by orders from above, figured it was just one of those assignments, and who could have guessed this nowhere place would produce an absolute freak of a mage born with Dual Elements? Even back when Mo Fan only had a single Fire Element, I already had my eye on him, wanted to pull him into the military corps. And now it turns out the kid was hiding talent this earth-shattering. He's mine. I'd sell everything I own before I let him go.*
The Zhou clan man had been about to rise and speak — and then Zhankong's outburst left him completely stupefied.
*Like hell this is fair. The Zhou Clan wants him too.*
He already regretted not rushing in to drag the boy away earlier. Now that Dual Elements had come to light, every faction in Bo City was going to tear itself apart fighting over this unclaimed kid.
"Chief Zhankong, you may call the shots on many things in Bo City — but that doesn't mean you can simply take whatever you please. I'll be reporting this up the chain. Our Magic Association has never let a once-in-a-generation talent slip through its fingers, and what organization is better at nurturing mages than ours?" Yang Zuohe shot to his feet.
Small clans and minor noble houses might defer to the military out of politeness. The Magic Association had no such obligation.
Raid their home?
No one in this world had ever dared raid the Mage Association.
"As a matter of fact, our school would be more than happy to invest heavily in a student of this caliber — so please, gentlemen, there really is no need to trouble yourselves. Mm, mm." Principal Zhu also weighed in.
*Blast it all — Zhankong and Yang Zuohe, the nerve of them, poaching right in front of me before the boy's even graduated. Old Zhu here may be known for getting along with everyone, but that does not mean I'll step aside over a student like this. Think you can raid my magic school? Don't forget — your military is full of Military Mages who trained right here under us. Come at me then, Zhankong.*
Mu Zhuoyun stood rooted to the spot. He watched as every guest in the hall reeled from Mo Fan's revelation, watched as the city's great powers bickered openly over the boy, and watched that young mage standing in the dueling arena, commanding both Lightning and Fire.
His own daughter Mu Ningxue possessed extraordinarily rare magical talent as well — but when it came to sheer appeal, Dual Elements won out. Mu Ningxue's innate Spirit-Grade Ice Seed unquestionably placed her above all her peers — yet even a Spirit-Grade Ice Seed was something that wealthy clans could eventually acquire through the painstaking gathering of rare natural treasures. This, though — a talent for Dual Elements — was something you could search the entire world with a lantern and never find a second instance of.
Could he say it aloud? That he, Mu Zhuoyun, desperately wanted this boy too?
"Up you get — Brother Jiaxing, up you get, quickly now. I only ever meant to teach your son a small lesson. I could never have actually gone through with something so drastic." Mu Zhuoyun rushed over and helped Mo Jiaxing to his feet.
Mu Zhuoyun's entire demeanor had done a complete one-eighty.
Mo Jiaxing was back on his feet, looking around in something close to disbelief.
A driver might not fully understand what Dual Elements meant in the abstract — but one look at the expressions on the faces of Bo City's most powerful men, one look at the way they were now falling over each other for his son, told him everything he needed to know about how extraordinary his boy truly was.
No — "extraordinary" wasn't even close. His son was shaking all of Bo City to its foundations.
It was real. It was actually real. Every bit of it had been worth it — worth selling the only property they owned to get him into Tianlan Magic High School. If he had hesitated even for a single moment back then, he would have smothered a mage this magnificent before the boy ever had a chance to bloom. Look at these powerful men of Bo City — look at their faces, look at the way they're fighting over his son. My God — what had he, Mo Jiaxing, ever done to deserve a child this incredible?
Mo Jiaxing wiped away tears he could no longer hold back and stood up straight.
A life of unrelenting labor, a pittance for wages, cramped quarters that had kept his back permanently bowed — driving cars for wealthy men, bowing and scraping at their whims, no different from being on his knees day after day... He understood now why his son had told him to stand up. Because from this moment on, neither of them would ever need to bend the knee before anyone again.