Chapter 9: Midterm Exam: Team Competition

After the individual combat, the next event was the team collaboration project.

All the teams gathered in the center of the Arena. The examiner announced the rules for team collaboration in a loud voice. Xuanxi noticed the number of people in the surrounding teams—they were all three or four people.

She and Hildegrif stood at the edge of the group. Only two of them, looking lonely.

“Is that the Edelstein family’s young lady and her partner?”

“Just two people? Are they crazy?”

“Team collaboration is a five-team melee flag capture. How can two people defend and capture the flags?”

“I heard her partner doesn’t even have a rank. She won against Derek in the individual combat, probably just lucky. There’s no luck in team battles.”

“No matter how strong Edelstein is, she’s just one dragon. What can two people do?”

The examiner finished reading the rules and began checking the roster for each team. When he read out “Hildegrif von Edelstein, Xuanxi Herras,” he looked up at the two of them.

“Are you sure you want to participate as a two-person team?” There was a subtle doubt in his tone.

“Team collaboration is a five-team melee. Each team has three to four people. A two-person team will be at a clear numerical disadvantage. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Hildegrif said.

Once those words were spoken, there was no room for turning back. Xuanxi glanced sideways at her. Xige had her usual expressionless face, but Xuanxi noticed that her right hand was in her pocket, and her fingers were curling slightly.

The rules of the melee flag capture were simple: five teams were deployed into the same simulated battlefield. Each team had its own base and flag.

Capturing flags scored points, and defending flags also scored points. The team with the highest score within the time limit won.

The simulated battlefield was a complex terrain—the center was an open area, surrounded by forests, hills, and rivers. The bases of the five teams were scattered around the edge of the battlefield in a five-pointed star layout.

Xuanxi and Hildegrif’s base was on a small highland at the northeast corner.

The light of the teleportation faded. Xuanxi opened her eyes and found herself standing on a wooden platform. In the center of the platform stood a flagpole, a dark blue flag fluttering loudly in the wind. Around them were dense forests. In the distance, beams of light from other bases could be seen.

Hildegrif stood beside her, scanning the surrounding terrain.

“I’ll go capture flags,” she said. “You just defend the base.”

“You’re going alone?”

“Your movement style is suited for defense. My attribute is suited for offense.” Hildegrif’s speaking speed was a bit faster than usual, indicating that her mind was racing. “In a five-team melee, if someone attacks, you hold them off. I’ll capture the flags and come right back.”

Xuanxi thought for a moment, then nodded. “How long will you be gone?”

“Ten minutes is enough.” With that, Hildegrif turned and disappeared into the forest.

Xuanxi stood next to the flagpole and took a deep breath. In the distance came the roar of battle—fire, frost, lightning, all elements interweaving. Someone was attacking, someone was defending, someone was chasing.

And here she stood alone, guarding a flag.

Before long, the first wave of attack came.

It was an entire team—a four-person group, charging out from the forest on the west side at the same time. The leader was a male earth-affinity dragon, followed by a wind-affinity, an ice-affinity, and a fire-affinity.

Four against one.

There was virtually no chance of winning.

“Only one person?” The leading male saw Xuanxi and curled his lips in disdain. “Where’s Edelstein? She ditched you and ran off?”

Xuanxi didn’t answer. She lowered her center of gravity slightly, her hands hanging naturally at her sides.

“Finish this quickly.” The leading male waved his hand. “Take the flag.”

All four moved at once. The earth-affinity male slammed his hands on the ground, and a wall of earth rose up in front of Xuanxi, blocking her view.

The wind-affinity circled from the side, moving as fast as a shadow. Ice and fire pressed forward from the front, flame and ice spikes weaving into a deadly net.

Xuanxi didn’t retreat, and she couldn’t.

She leaped, vaulting over the top of the stone wall. The moment she landed, she was already between the ice and fire affinities. Her movement technique was exhibited to its fullest in such a cramped space—like a snake, incredibly agile.

But four against one, the gap in strength was still too great.

She repelled the ice-affinity, but flames from the fire-affinity scorched her from the side. She dodged the flames, only to have the wind-affinity’s attack in her face. She blocked the wind, and the earth-affinity’s stone wall rose behind her, cutting off her escape.

In less than two minutes, she had been forced to the edge of the base. The flagpole was less than five meters behind her.

But she couldn’t get past them. The four worked together in perfect coordination, clearly having practiced tactics specifically for “flag defense.”

Earth sealed off movement, ice and fire suppressed the front, and wind waited for an opportunity to seize the flag.

Xuanxi’s breathing began to quicken. Her stamina was draining fast. Her arm had blisters from the flames, and a gash from an ice spike ran down her calf, blood dripping from her ankle onto the ground.

But she couldn’t let anyone near the flagpole. Alone, she held off the repeated assaults of four people.

Seven minutes. Xige would be back soon. But her body finally couldn’t hold out any longer—her leg was smashed hard by an earth wall, and she collapsed to her knees at the base of the flagpole.

Flames had already ignited before her. Ice spikes had locked onto her direction. The wind-affinity had circled behind her and reached out to grab the flagpole.

Xuanxi had already closed her eyes. Just as she was about to give up, she felt something.

A warm current inside her—the river she had been dredging every day with her breathing technique suddenly surged at this moment. Not a gentle flow, but like a burst dam, gushing from her dantian and rushing through her meridians to every limb and bone.

She heard the sound of water. It was the water inside her. In her blood, in her bones, in every cell of her body.

Water. Everywhere between heaven and earth, water that exists in all places.

The water vapor in the air, the dew in the forest, the underground currents, the roaring of the distant river—everything surged toward her.

She opened her eyes. In her amber-gold pupils, a blue light was swirling.

She raised her hand. But it wasn’t for attack. She was calling to the water. A wall of water rose from the ground before her.

Xuanxi’s water wall, condensed from water vapor in the air. The vapor turned into liquid in an instant, converging under her will into a three-meter-tall arc-shaped barrier, blocking the flames and ice spikes.

The fire-affinity’s flames collided with the water wall, hissing as steam rose. The ice-affinity’s ice spikes sank into the water wall, vanished as if swallowed, disappearing without a trace.

Silence fell over the entire area. The wind-affinity dragon who had circled behind the flagpole already had his hand on it. But the appearance of the water wall made him freeze, his whole body stiff as he turned his head to look at Xuanxi.

Xuanxi stood up. A faint blue aura enveloped her, like a thin film of water. The water vapor in the air condensed around her into fine droplets, suspended in midair, refracting the sunlight into rainbow-colored light.

“Water…” someone in the stands blurted out. “She’s water affinity!”

“A water-affinity dragon? The water attribute has been extinct among the western dragon clan for over a hundred years!”

“Impossible! Doesn’t she have no bloodline rating?”

“Who dares to say she has no bloodline now? She’s water affinity! Genuine water affinity!”

Xuanxi didn’t hear those voices. She only heard one sound—the sound of silver-white lightning cutting through the air from the distance.

Hildegrif was back. She burst out of the forest, her silver-white hair scattering in the wind. In her left hand, she carried a dark red flag, and tucked under her arm were two more flags.

Three flags. In just ten minutes, she had captured three flags from different teams.

But her expression changed the moment she saw Xuanxi.

It was a shock that Xige hadn’t shown in a long time. Her lips parted slightly, and her amethyst eyes reflected the pale blue glow on Xuanxi’s body.

Water. Xuanxi was a water-affinity dragon.

She looked at Hildegrif and curved her lips into a smile. “You’re back.”

Hildegrif didn’t answer. She directly inserted the three flags next to the blue flag, then turned to face the four-person team.

Silver-white lightning radiated around her.

“You just watch from the side,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest.”

The four-person team’s faces had already changed when they saw the three flags, and then when they saw Hildegrif’s whole body glowing with lightning, their faces turned completely pale.

The leading earth-affinity male opened his mouth, about to say something.

But Hildegrif didn’t give him a chance to speak. The lightning exploded.

Silver-white arcs shot from her palms, transforming into over a dozen small lightning serpents. They precisely bypassed Xuanxi and the flagpole, striking the ground at the feet of the four individuals. It was a warning. Lightning burst at their feet, leaving scorched black marks.

“You can keep going.” Hildegrif’s voice wasn’t loud, but every word was as cold as ice. “But think about the consequences. I won’t go easy on you.”

The four exchanged glances. “We surrender!”

Then they turned and ran, not daring to linger for a single moment.

Xuanxi watched the four figures disappear into the forest and suddenly laughed.

“You scared them.”

“I don’t think so.” Hildegrif retracted the lightning and turned to face her.

Her amethyst eyes fixed on the pale blue aura covering Xuanxi, staring for a long time.