Before the author could reply, an eruption of flames incinerated a good chunk of the horde of Ursa Minor. I watched as the vermillion pillar of fire surge high into the heavens, breaking apart one of the clouds.

"Huff…huff…"

Lilith staggered out from underneath the huge heap of Ursa Minor, a good fraction of which were disappearing after having been hit by the superheated flames. Even so, they had done a lot of damage to their target. There were plenty of bruises and sc.r.a.pes all around Lilith's body from where the cuddly teddy bears had clobbered her with their fearsome strength and claws.

"!!!"

However, she found herself staring down my blazing arrow. I had summoned Orion and had Rigel notched onto my bow, pointing the blindingly illuminated projectile at her. Lilith understood at once that she had been defeated. I could shoot her anytime I wanted, and there was no way she could avoid it. Furthermore, she could sense from the tremendous amount of mana emanating from the arrow that it was going to be a devastating spell that could potentially kill her.

"Hah~"

Sighing, Lilith sheathed her sword and raised both of her hands up. She lowered her head meekly and glumly.

"I surrender. This is my loss."

"About time," I grumbled as I dismissed Orion. Then I glanced up at the spectators in the trees. "You heard her. You can stop watching now."

Murmurs of disbelief rippled through the trees as student spectators frantically exchanged opinions and a.n.a.lyses. They couldn't believe their eyes.

"The h.e.l.lfire Bear G.o.ddess…was defeated?!"

"Not even Lilith's summoning spell could stand up to that guy's summoned Beasts?!"

"Just who the h.e.l.l is that guy?!"

"I know him! Isn't he the summoner who team-killed the entire Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy earlier this year?! The one who defeated the Invincible G.o.ddess of War, Cecilia Stuart!?"

"Oh my G.o.d…it really is him!"

Even from down here, I could hear a lot of things I didn't want to hear. Stupid rumors and groundless speculation. There was some useful tidbits of information mixed in as well, but I would have to filter them out later. what? I wasn't some edge lord who condemned the whole world and wanted to be forever alone. Reality didn't work out that way. I had to rely on others to survive. It was only natural.

Plus my desire to keep a low profile took a hit. Come to think of it, I could have avoided the whole thing by refusing to battle against Lilith, but I was more interested in challenging myself, finding out her skills and techniques and in general, the thrill and exhilaration that combat brought. So even if my profile went up, I had no regrets. It was a good fight, and I had recorded the exchange in my gla.s.ses.

My teammates would benefit a lot from watching this duel and a.n.a.lyzing Lilith's skills and techniques. It sucked that other people could also see my techniques and the magic I used, but I would be naïve if I thought I could keep my skills hidden throughout the entire duration of the Spiritual Road training camp.

Furthermore, let's be serious, Lilith wasn't going to stop pursuing me just because I refused to fight. I would eventually be forced to fight her properly one day. I might as well get it done sooner than later.

And now that this matter was settled, I could move on and continue with my original objective. To continue collecting information and intelligence on the other students in the Spiritual Road. Glancing at the trees where the spectators hid, I briefly wondered who I should follow. The reason why I tolerated their presence was because I had been doing the exact same thing the entire time. Whenever a fight broke out in the vicinity, I would conceal myself inside the forest and watch the combatants duke it out, even recording the fights on my gla.s.ses. So I had no right to condemn other people for doing the same thing I did.

Of course, the difference was that I stayed quiet and didn't talk to other people like what the spectators were doing right now, speculating, gossiping and chatting. Especially since everyone besides my teammates were strangers, I couldn't carelessly trust them or talk to them. If it turned out to be an enemy…

"You okay?" I asked, expressing concern for Lilith. I didn't hurt her that badly, just enough to incapacitate her momentarily and to prove my point. It was a good thing she surrendered before I delivered the finis.h.i.+ng blow, or I would be collecting her blood token from her near-corpse and forcibly teleporting her out of the Spiritual Realm for emergency medical treatment.

"Yes." Lilith nodded, and as though she had just read my mind, her hand went to her pocket. "I suppose I should hand over my blood token to you."

"No need." I raised my hand and stopped her before she could take out her blood token. "I don't want your blood token."

"…eh?"

Lilith stared at me dumbly. It was understandable. Most of the students here were fighting in order to steal each other's blood tokens and eliminate as much compet.i.tion as possible. They saw this Spiritual Road as one gigantic compet.i.tion where the strongest survived and the weak get culled.

However, that wasn't the way I viewed this Spiritual Road. Not only did I not buy all this "strong eat the weak" and "survival of the fittest" bulls.h.i.+t, my objective for the Spiritual Road differed. I was not aiming to reach the top but rather, to gather information and intelligence on the various opponents and rivals that Jing Tian Academy would be facing in the national tournament. In that way, Lilith was still useful to me. If she was still around, she was bound to challenge others, or others would inevitably challenge her, and I could watch their fight and collect even more information regarding more opponents. So rather than kick her out of the Spiritual Road for now, it would be more useful to keep her around to watch her fight other people.

Furthermore, if I took her blood token right in front of everybody, it would mark me out as a huge target. Lilith was sure to have multiple blood tokens, given how she defeated other mages in the Spiritual Road before our fight. In the Spiritual Road, your rank was determined by the number of blood tokens you collected. In other words, the more you have, the higher you would be ranked. Conversely, it also meant that the more blood tokens you had, the bigger a target you would be. After all, it would be more efficient to gather blood tokens by targeting the people who had the largest number of blood tokens on their persons and take all of them in one fell swoop. In contrast, it would be a waste of time to target the poor guy who only had one blood token, and after witnessing me take down Lilith Porter, I was sure the majority of the people here would think that it wasn't worth the trouble of fighting me just to take one blood token.

Of course, none of them knew about the ten extra blood tokens I had collected from the deceased students after the battle with the Inferno Kong.

"Are you serious?"

Lilith was not privy to my thoughts, and she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Nor did I intend to enlighten her about my motives.

"Yeah. My goal is not to collect as many blood tokens as possible. I couldn't care less about the rankings. Besides…" I gestured toward our hidden spectators. "If I take them, all those guys there will start hunting me. I would rather not put such a huge bullseye on my back."

"Fair enough." Lilith nodded, convinced. She also saw the intelligence of making oneself as unappetizing a target as possible. "But I don't feel right about this."

"Oh, of course it's not without any conditions." I smiled, and Lilith didn't know whether she should be relieved or alarmed. She was instinctively crossing her arms in front of her chest, as if to defend herself. I didn't know what she was imagining, and I didn't want to know either. "I want you to promise that you won't attack me again, at least for the duration of the Spiritual Road."

"Done." Lilith nodded. "You've won against me in the Spiritual Road, and you have the right as the victor to demand that from me."

"Bargained well and done," I said, mimicking a Mechwarrior from one of the clans, even though I very much preferred to be from the Draconis Combine. Yeah, the Draconis Combine, not the Capellan Confederation. You got a problem with that?

After ensuring that Lilith wasn't hurt too badly, and given how her friends were nearby to help in case a few of the spectators had the stupid idea to ambush us after we exhausted each other out in a match, I could leave without worry.

"I'll see you next time," I told her. She nodded.

"Keep in touch."

"…we were never in touch to begin with." I sighed and shook my head. "I mean, our dads are, but this is the first time we've actually met and talked to each other."

"True." Lilith giggled. "I look forward to seeing you again." she then smiled and cut in before I could say anything. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you in the exchange session at Vermillion Academy."

I almost forgot about that. Maybe I would think of an excuse when the time came to escape the trip, but I was also aware that it wasn't a bad idea to just go. I could see the edge lords complaining about me socializing, but establis.h.i.+ng several connections, looking for alternative resources and gathering information on other academies (not just their magic but also their education curriculums and specialization programs) would also be a great idea.

The more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded.

"Yeah. I'll be seeing you then."

With that, I turned and left the clearing, disappearing into the shadows of the forest and melting away into the darkness.

*

"d.a.m.n it!'

"Just fall already!"

I watched as the two mages engaged each other aggressively, blasting spells at each other. The lightning mage charged forward, using high-speed maneuvers to avoid the floating boulders that his opponent hurled at him, and threw his hand to unleash a deadly web of electricity. The earth mage then conjured a barrier of rock in response, which was scorched black by the superheated lightning.

The lightning mage continued, undeterred, weaving his way through the sandstorm that his opponent threw up. Blasting away sharp sand, he seemed to disappear into a blur before reappearing behind the earth mage. The huge guy spun around, wrapping his arm in armored rock that took the shape of a gauntlet, but the smaller, more agile lightning mage nimbly flipped himself up and over the rock gauntlet by placing a hand on its rough surface, and then kicked the earth mage in the head. Lightning exploded when his foot connected and the earth mage staggered.

Grunting, the earth mage refused to fall and instead stomped on the ground. A huge earth spike burst out of the ground to impale the lighting mage, but he twisted his body in midair and then swung his lightning-wreathed hand to obliterate the earth spike. Even as shards of stone showered both parties, the two guys threw their fists at each other, one clad in hard, rocky gauntlet, and the other wreathed in deadly silver lightning.

Boom!

The resulting explosion sent tremors rippling across the ground. I peered at the battle, the lenses of my gla.s.ses briefly darkening to protect my eyes. The first to emerge from the smoke was the earth mage, his body fuming. He raised his head to glare at the electric explosion, snarling.

However, lightning struck him in the place he least expected. Having disappeared into a blur and making use of his extreme speed, the lightning mage punched his opponent from behind. The earth mage bellowed as he was electrocuted, but he somehow withstood the lethal currents to turn around and retaliate. The lightning mage wasn't stupid enough to wait for his opponent to counter, and he was already moving up. Placing both hands on the big guy's rock gauntlet, he sprang up and over the astonished earth mage and then whirled around to kick him in the head. There was a snap and the earth mage tumbled forward, falling face-first into the dirt.

Spinning in the air, the lightning mage descended upon his sprawled opponent. Clasping both hands, he completed the casting of another lightning spell and generated an immense ball of electricity. Swinging both hands down, he slammed his entwined fists into the earth mage's spine and unleashed the tremendous amount of electricity.

Everything vanished in a blinding explosion.

"This is mine, I guess." The lightning mage smiled as he took the earth mage's blood token. A few seconds later, the earth mage's body s.h.i.+mmered, and then the unconscious guy completely vanished from sight.

"Anyone else want to challenge me?" the lightning mage asked in a carefree manner as he directed his gaze toward the trees where the other spectators were concealed, and I was sure he also looked in my direction. When there was no response, he whistled mockingly and stalked off. There were a few enraged murmurs, but no one was stupid enough to rise to his provocation.

After all, if they challenged him and lost, they would forfeit their blood tokens, and then they would be forced to exit the Spiritual Road. Unless they were confident of defeating the lightning mage, they had to suck up their indignity for now.

"Lei Lie from Tian Rai Academy." I checked my gla.s.ses to ensure that I had the recording of the entire battle. This guy was sure to be a formidable foe in the upcoming national tournament. My team needed the video to a.n.a.lyze his skills and magic.

While I was replaying the video in my gla.s.ses, the lenses projecting a holographic screen for me to review the recently transpired fight, the other spectators nosily left. As usual, they indulged in their speculation, gossip and rumors. I knew it was sometimes useful to eavesdrop on them, for some of the information they provided was actually pretty relevant.

"Richard!"

"WHOA!"

I was so engrossed in watching the video that I didn't notice Lilith sneaking up on me. Jolting up upright, I spun around and almost hit her with a reflexive iai. She also instinctively backed off, realizing that she had almost made a fatal mistake.

"Lilith? What do you want?"

My heart thumping, I lowered my hand from the hilt of my Gan Jiang. Lilith looked a little embarra.s.sed, but I trusted her not to renege on our agreement. So far, she had stayed true to her word and stayed out of my way.

Her sudden appearance now brought about a sense of foreboding.

"Sorry for surprising you." Lilith hesitated for a moment before she took a deep breath. "Honestly, I know I don't have the right to bother you, but I don't have a choice. You're the only one I can turn to right now. I need your help."