Luke shuddered all over, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and subconsciously shrank his neck.
“Wh-Why me?”
He whined in a small voice, muttering as if asking No.1 or lamenting to himself, “Was I born with a face that says ‘hit me’? Is it because my square head is particularly hateable? From Bart of the Betty Territory to this No.1 now—why are these Blood Race big shots always thinking of killing me first? What did I ever do to anyone?”
Kleya watched Luke’s cowardly yet aggrieved expression, speechlessly glanced at Yisha beside her, and said in a low voice: “This proud disciple of yours… has he always been… well, so ‘unconsciously asking for a beating’?”
Yisha’s cheeks were also flushed, both helpless at her disciple’s unworthiness and somewhat amused: “Principal… this kid is usually hot-headed and has a loose mouth at the academy, a bit… well, ‘in need of discipline,’ but he’s never been like this before…”
She looked at Luke acting like a joker still complaining even under the threat of death, and couldn’t find the right adjective. “Maybe too much pressure has caused behavioral disorder?”
Just then, No.1 had already started condensing a second Blood Spear.
Bigger, more solid, radiating a terrifying fluctuation of Blood Qi that even slightly distorted space—it gathered above his head once more.
Obviously, this time he intended to go all out and completely shatter this troublesome defense.
“Quick! Stop staring! Get inside! Into the building!”
Luke’s face changed. He stopped complaining and hurriedly helped Kleya and Yisha, calling to the other two still-shocked teachers, as they retreated toward the depths of the dormitory—especially toward the direction of Yize’s room.
“Inside! Around Senior Yize’s dorm, there must be other protective measures he left behind! This outer barrier probably can’t withstand a second hit!”
Luke explained urgently, his tone full of unshakable trust in Yize.
Kleya was half-carried, half-pushed inward as she walked, and at his words she couldn’t help glancing sideways, her tone knowing with a hint of complicated teasing: “Luke, what you said… is that a ‘self-exposure’? You finally admit that these magic arrays and the place you plan to go are all laid out and arranged by Yize?”
Luke stiffened, a flash of embarrassed awkwardness on his face, but it was quickly replaced by urgency: “Oh, my esteemed Principal! What time is this? We’re almost dead, who cares about that? Besides, we’re all going to hide in Senior Yize’s room anyway, you’re so smart you must have guessed! Senior Yize… he’s generous, he definitely won’t blame me for ‘leaking a little’!”
As he said that, he silently prayed in his heart:
‘Senior Yize, you have to understand your junior! Lives are at stake—if I don’t reveal a bit of your stuff, people will die!’
However, just as the second Blood Spear above No.1’s head was about to take shape, radiating a despair-inducing aura of destruction, something unexpected happened!
Outside the dormitory, at the spots where the magic barrier had shattered and dissipated from the first spear, the remaining Mana fragments and broken rune marks in the air suddenly began to glow faintly as if they had come to life.
The next moment, everyone—including No.1, who was about to unleash a lethal blow—was stunned into silence:
The destroyed magic barrier was beginning to self-repair and reassemble at an astonishing speed!
In just over ten seconds, the outer defense system of the dormitory, which had originally been thinned by nearly half, actually recovered to nearly its initial state!
“Th-This… how is this possible?!” one of the teachers cried out.
Kleya suddenly stopped, whipped around, her purple eyes full of extreme shock.
She looked at Yisha, her voice nearly distorted: “Yisha! A destroyed magic array… can self-repair like this? Does… does this conform to the principles of the Study of Magic Arrays?!”
Yisha was also slightly open-mouthed, her face expressing bewilderment and shock: ‘This is beyond my knowledge.’
She shook her head forcefully and laughed bitterly: “Principal… take back what I said just now. Forget about ‘copying’—even just this function of ‘rapid self-repair after being shattered by external force’… with my current knowledge and understanding, I simply can’t do it!”
She took a deep breath: “Moreover, to support such a huge, complex, and regenerating magic array to operate for a long time, the required Mana reserve is absolutely terrifying! How on earth did Yize… do this?”
At this moment, the image of Yize in Kleya and Yisha’s minds underwent another earth-shaking change.
Through the shared senses of Iguneel, Swan “saw” the miraculous scene outside and also covered her mouth in surprise.
‘Senior Yize… he can even arrange such a powerful magic array? And it self-repairs?’
Her eyes sparkled with admiration and disbelief, and she turned to ask in her mind,
‘Iguneel, you also know a lot of ancient magic knowledge, right? What do you think of this magic array?’
Iguneel was silent for a moment, then his voice came through with rare solemnity and a hint of admiration:
‘That Yize kid… he really can give me new “surprises” every time. The conception and execution of this magic array are truly exquisite—even in my era, it would put many so-called “Array Grandmasters” to shame. However, among humans, only Yize can actually set up this array, since his Mana is that exaggerated. Estimating from the intensity of that Blood Race’s attack just now…’
Iguneel quickly calculated:
‘To fully exhaust the Mana stored in this magic array’s energy network, you would need to launch at least thirty consecutive attacks of the same intensity, and the interval between attacks cannot be too short, otherwise the self-repair speed will keep up with the consumption.’
Near the entrance of the dormitory, Luke was stunned for a few seconds, but then a surge of confidence from his blind trust in Yize, mixed with the joy of surviving and his innate “courting death” spirit, rushed into his heart!
The fear and tension on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a familiar smug expression that made people want to hit him.
He leaped back to a spot near the edge of the barrier, put his hands on his hips, puffed out his chest, and started taunting No.1, whose face was dark enough to drip blood:
“Oh my! I thought our Lord No.1 was so amazing? That last strike was quite intimidating, shaking the earth!”
Luke deliberately yelled at the top of his voice, “And the result? That’s it? That’s all?!”
He even imitated No.1’s previous tone, saying affectedly: “‘The toys of ants should end here’—oh, the way you said that, people would think you’ve already dismantled our ‘toy’! So, what about it? Face hurt? Need me to blow on it for you?”
As he spoke, under the astonished gazes of Kleya, Yisha, and the others, Luke actually started performing a “repeated jump” at the edge of the magic barrier!
He made a small jump, his toes just crossing the inner boundary of the barrier, then immediately pulled back, shouting, “Hey! I’m out!”
Then he quickly leaned forward and immediately pulled back, shouting, “Ah! I’m back in!”
He repeated this like an arrogant groundhog, while also making faces at No.1, whose face was full of killing intent: “What? You don’t accept it? If you don’t accept it, come on in! Come in and hit me!”
Luke’s confidence at this moment came entirely from Yize. He had witnessed firsthand the power and wonder of this magic array, and his admiration for Yize had reached its peak.
Since it could even block No.1’s full-force strike and automatically repair itself, the outer barrier would definitely be safe for a while.
Since it’s safe… wouldn’t it be a huge loss not to take the chance to taunt this bastard who almost wiped them out and swore to kill him first?
Kleya watched Luke’s extremely annoying, full-force taunting behavior, and couldn’t help twitching her mouth, once again casting a speechless look at Yisha.
Yisha was now holding her forehead, unable to bear watching, her cheeks red, whispering: “Principal… don’t look at me. This kind of behavior… I’ve never seen it before either. Usually he’s just a bit sharp-tongued, but I never thought he could be so… so ‘lively’.”
Kleya looked at Luke happily dancing on the edge of death, and couldn’t help murmuring: “With Luke’s personality… how has he managed to survive safely until now? How much dumb luck has he had along the way?”
What she didn’t know was that the original Luke, although a little glib, wasn’t nearly this exaggerated.
This personality now was entirely raised by the confidence Yize had given him, cultivated without him even noticing.