Chapter 11: Grade Champion (or champion of the grade)
Teacher Zuang said: “Be swift as the wind.” [TL: in chinese it is 3 words]
Fenwan mumbled: “Swift as the wind, swift as the wind.”
Teacher Zuang turned and said to me: “Layson, although you didn’t lose today, you always exhaust yourself during your fights, you aren’t able to take advantage of your body’s superiority.”
I said shocked: “I didn’t use my superiority?”
Teacher Zuang nodded: “Do you remember the first fight you won in the battle for the position of cheif?”
I said: “The one against Hoxin?”
Teacher Zuang said: “That’s right, do you still remember how you won?”
I nodded: “Of course, I purposely took his hit and then threw him off the arena. Are you trying to say…”
Teacher Zuang nodded: “That’s right, although I don’t know what battle chi you have been practicing, but I can see that your body’s defense is very high. Your natural physique added to the astonishing defense of your battle chi defense has so much potential, but you waste it. My three words to you is – Steady as a mountain. Speed is not your forte, instead focus on your strength and defense, understand?”
I nodded my head happily, Teacher Zuang’s words made me feel as though everything in my head had cleared up, as if I caught on to some profound truth. [ED: Just for all those CD fans out there (I added profound into the text)]
Both Fenwan and I were still pondering on Teacher Zuang’s advice as we left her office. Just outised the office building, we ran into a group of first years from the magic track, upon seeing our condition they started laughing at us.
“Look, aren’t those two from that dumb class? How come they look like this, it looks as if they were electrified by lightning magic and then they were burned by fire magic.”
“I’m guessing they did something bad and a teacher punished them.”
………
Fenwan and I lifted our heads up, Fenwan whispered: “This is too embarrassing, let’s hurry and return to our dorm.” Both of us each made a strange hiss, scaring the students watching from the side and we hurriedly ran back to our dorm.
I took a quick shower and changed into a clean set of clothes, Fenwan and I finally let out a sigh, he said to me: “Old Lay, I can’t hold up anymore, I’m so tired, I need to go rest.” When did I become “Old Lay”, am I that old?
I nodded: “Bye, I am also going back.”
Fenwan smiled: “The tournament will start the day after tomorrow, let’s do our best.”
I said: “You too, I hope that I will run into you during the grade-wide matches.”
On the way back to the room, I thought about Teacher Zuang’s words, “Steady as a mountain,” how can I make full use of my body’s high defense?
“Layson, you’re back.”
I turned and took a look, and saw that it was Jisue, I smiled at her: “You waited for me here?”
Jisue nodded: “It’s already so late, don’t you usually return early in the afternoon back to the dorm to practice? I asked Fenyun, he said he didn’t see you.”
I answered: “We held a test in class today to select our participants for the end of the term tournament.”
Jisue held on to my arm: “You were selected, weren’t you?”
I pinched her cute little nose: “Why do you have so much confidence in me? There are many people with great strength in this school.”
Jisue said: “I believe in only you, because you also have great strength.”
I nodded: “Then what about you, are you going to join the tournament?”
Jisue said: “My magic level is not that high, how can I participate in the tournament. (Jisue is a 2nd year magic class student, mostly practicing water magic.) Older sister entered for the 2nd year competition, but her light magic is very famous.”
I smiled: “She is the brilliant student of the vice-principal, it’s inevitable she’s going to participate.”
Jisue wrinkled her small nose: “Sister didn’t rely on her connections to join the tournament, she entered based on her true strength. But Layson, If you become the grade-wide champion, are you really going to challenge Liwa?”
My face darkened: “Definitely, if I become the grade-wide champion, I have to challenge him, if I run from him, it’ll affect my future practice, especially my mentality.”
Jisue sighed: “Although you are very strong…”
I smiled: “What, do you also look down on me?”
Jisue hastily shook her head: “It’s not like that, I absolutely believe in you, but Liwa is the number 1 fighter in the whole school, and he’s not that easily defeated, I’m worried that you might get hurt.”
I said: “No need to worry, I’m very thick-skinned. If anyone wants to hurt me, it’s not that easy. Relax, even if I don’t win, nothing will happen to me.”
Jisue nodded: “Alright, if you can promise your safety, I will be at ease.”
Sending Jisue off, I returned to the dorm, continuing to mull over Teacher Zuang’s words…
Two days later, a term closing ceremony was held. It was just a formality of the academy, It talked about how the students worked hard this semester and how they hope that everyone will continue to work hard and become stronger while taking even bigger steps towards improving themselves.
After the closing ceremony, Janfen, the Director of the Teaching Department, walked onto the platform and announced: “The Sky City Institute’s Annual Martial Tournament will now begin, all the participants of each grade should head to their appointed match.”
Today is the first round of the competition, the rules are very simple, 12 people will separate into two groups, (the grades with 5 classes will have 10 people separate into 2 groups), then the top two students in each group will be chosen to qualify and participate in the playoffs. That is, if I think it is necessary to participate in all seven rounds to become the grade champion. [ED: not sure what this is supposed to mean, maybe the director can select the grade-wide champion based on what he sees?]
Fenwan and I were separated into two different groups, I looked around for a familiar face, But I have never seen any of the participants in this group before (since entering the school and becoming injured, I’ve been in confinement, so I have not seen a lot of people), Teacher Zuang called Fenwan and I to her side, instructing us before the fight: “You two have to be careful, Layson, if you run into the fighting class it will be easy for you to take care of, but for the magic classes you have to be careful, the students of the magic classes usually has some strange magic up their sleeves, take caution. Fenwan, as for you, you have to fully bring out your speed, you can’t give your opponent a chance, using the shortest time to get the best result, although the number of classes I’ve taught isn’t high, I know that you are the most talented first year students I have ever seen, don’t make teacher be disappointed.”
I nodded my head firmly, turning to go to my own arena.
Since it’s a round-robin tournament, our two groups will hold three rounds of competition today, the competition begins at the same time, and my first opponent is from the warrior class, from his looks he seems very tough, with a height around 180cm, his whole body is packed with shocking muscles.
The referee called us to the front: “Martial-magic class Layson vs Warrior class Xili. The rules are very simple, you can’t strike aiming for death or to inflict permanent wounds [dismemberment], you can’t use restricted weapons (usually one uses the school’s provided weapons). If the participant gets kicked off stage or is unable to continue the battle, they lose, of course forfeiting is also allowed, understand?”
I quickly nodded and started to circulate the Berserk God’s battle chi throughout my entire body, when Xili first saw me, his eyes were filled with surprise, I imagined that he thought, how can this fellow be in the magic-martial class, he looks to be bigger than me by a size, he’s definitely not going to be easy to deal with.
I proudly stood on the arena: “Come.” [ED: many thanks to anon, you know who you are.]
Xili snorted: “You don’t use any weapons?”
I raised my fist, waving: “This is my best weapon, you can use whatever you want.”
Xili thought that I was looking down on him, and his eyes immediately raged with anger, bitterly saying: “Fine, you asked for this, don’t blame me later.” As he said so, He took a fine iron spear from the weapon rack and said: “Look out.”
It will definitely be more comfortable to fight with a pure martial fighter, at least it won’t be like last time, where I was against those 3rd year martial-magic class seniors, in which I needed to defend against their magic as well as attacks.
Although Xili looked very boorish, but he’s not a pure strength fighter, with a shake of his spear, many after shadows appeared immediately and rushed at me.
I thought to myself that although his power was very good, his strength was dispersed, so against me it was not enough to harm me. I did not dodge and just stood there, waiting for his spear to descend on me.
My behavior immediately surprised Xili, he thought I would have some technique or magic, in his eyes when he saw the spear was about to hit my body, he suddenly retracted and all the spear shadows became one again, quickly piercing to the front.
The spear was not sharp, I breathed in deeply and concentrated the Berserk God’s battle chi to the front of my chest, and just like this I took his attack head on.
The spear bent, and Xili felt as if he hit a metal board, not even able to injure me a little. From the corner of my mouth appeared a cold smile, and in one second I had grabbed on to his spear, sending my battle chi to my hand which became a light yellow color and bent his spear. Soon the tip of the spear was pushing down on his shoulder, I said: “Still want to continue?
Xili tried to struggle free, but the spear on his shoulder felt like ten thousand great burdens, he had no way to move even a little. On his forehead cold sweat appeared, I saw he was still unwilling to give in and pressed down with even more force with the spear still in my hands. Xili immediately kneeled on one knee under my pressure, I immediately shouted: “If you don’t want to embarrass yourself, admit defeat.”
Xili knew that he could not win against me when it came to strength, and he also did not get to show his specialty. Although in his heart there was a kind of vexation, he couldn’t help but say: “OK, I admit defeat.”
I raised the spear and threw it at him, turning to get off the stage, Xili shouted: “If I run into you again later, I will definitely not let you win this easily.”
I turned to give him a disdainful smile: “If you can persevere, I look forward to it anytime.”
Walking off the field, Teacher Zhuang came over and said to me: “You did very well, the opponent basically had no chance to fight back.”
I smiled: “This is all thanks to your advice.”
In the following days, I passed 3 rounds smoothly, and took a good grade of 4 battles, 4 wins. Today is the last round of the group competition, no matter who wins, I will enter the top 4. Today’s opponent is a student from the magic class, Teacher Zhuang said up until now he also has had 4 battles and 4 wins. In this fight today we will decide who will become the number 1 of this group.
In the other little group, Fenwan relied on his ghost-like movements and surpassed everything else, their group competition already and Fenwan came out top, the second was a martial warrior.
I walked up the arena, and my opponent was dressed in a standard magician’s robe, I only just realized right before the round that my opponent today is a girl (I don’t mean in any way to discriminate).
My opponent was wrapped in a thick red full-body gown, and the cloak on top of her head was pressed very low, I could not see her appearance since she only exposed a translucent white hand and she held a long magic staff her hands, and a snake was carved on top of the staff in some special material, the top of the staff was the snake mouth which held a huge magic crystal. From a glance I could tell it was a very high quality staff. Teacher Zhuang said, this girl’s true power was very strong, the ones before me had no way to defeat her formidable magic.
After all the opponent is a girl, I nodded slightly at her, the female magician raised her magic staff, when the referee announced the start of the match, her magic staff immediately sent a long fireball and flew towards me, what a fast casting speed. In a rush I threw out a few ice cones, canceling out most of her attack. When the other fireballs neared towards me, with my fist one at a time, I also took care of them this way.
While I was resisting against the fireballs, she started to lightly sway her magic staff, and from her mouth was an endless low chant, obviously she wanted to continuously use magic and not give me a chance to get close.
I also didn’t rush to attack, I want to see what she can throw at me. These few days I never really bump into a true opponent and I felt very gloomy at winning easily. It did not satisfy me, I can only improve myself in dificult fights.
At this time, her magic was already completed, the magic staff in her hands drew out a beautiful red hexagram, from my experience at the library reading magic books, I knew, this was at least a grade 5 and above magic, it’s definitely not easy to deal with. As I expected, I heard her sharp and clear voice: “The dormant God of fire, release your energy, wake, god’s protector, Descend of the Fire Dragon.” No, this is not a grade 5 magic, it’s a grade 6!
M2t5 here. GUESS WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I got a new Translator :D:D::D:D:D:D::D:D:D::D::D:D:D::D. As you can see I’m very excited to welcome Demenious to ItranslateLN. WELCOME! This half chapter was partially done by Hurraycats, then I managed to ask TaffyGirl13 and Deception (from GravTrans) to finish it. So please give a big thank you to all three of them. This is the last material I have from Hurray, and I have marked where his translations stop, and where Deception and Taffy’s start. As of now I have 5 pages of the next Chapter Translated, so I hope we can meet next Sunday’s chapter deadline….
Thanks for those of you who have stayed with me the whole time, I have enjoyed reading your comments and seeing how much you enjoyed the series. Hopefully we will be able to stick to, or surpass our 1 chapter a week schedule we had previously.
Enjoy this chapter and welcome Demenious to the team! (we are now off hiatus)
Btw: editing chapters will push back dates on my FF.
I was alarmed, although my defense was very high, it could not withstand such powerful magic. In the meantime, the roar of a dragon came from within the red magic hexagram, and a small dragon flew out from the magic array, baring its teeth and claws at me. It stayed between the girl and I.
I circulated the Berserk God’s chi throughout my entire body while I stored the Demonic Arts away and calmly looked at the fire dragon. From the slight tremble of her staff, I could tell this magic was not easy for the girl magician to hold up, she brandished the staff and commanded the fire dragon to attack me.
The fire dragon had just started moving towards me and I could already feel the heat scorching my face. What a strong flame, no wonder it is ranked as the highest grade mid-level magic. I immediately punched towards the Dragon, increasing the range of the punch with the chi of the Berserk God. The light yellow battle chi of the Berserk God accurately hit the head of the fire dragon. The whole fire dragon shrunk a little, but it’s overall appearance did not change, and it continued towards me.
I was not shock, but rather quite happy. I was surprised that my battle chi could actually diminish the intensity of the magic. I learned later on that teacher Zuang had already told everyone this fact, but since I had missed so much of class, I did not know.
I sent out few waves of battle chi whenever the dragon came to attack me. While the battle chi slowed down the fire dragon, and reduced its strength, the girl magician constantly fed the dragon fire, boosting the magic once again.
I realised that at this rate the match would become a stalemate. I could already smell the hair burnt off my arms from my punches, if I got hit by this, my body could survive, but my clothes and hair would be burned off. Even if I didn’t get hurt, I still couldn’t land a decisive blow to this person… It’s so troublesome fighting against a magician.
I sneakily bound my Demonic Arts inside of the Berserk God’s battle chi, sending out ten fusion waves in quick succession. Since the power of the Demonic Arts was surrounded by the Berserk God’s battle chi, no one could tell the difference between this attack and the others I had sent out previously.
I used all my power in this attack, causing all the clothes on my body to bulge up. A pure yellow light rushed towards the fire dragon. The dragon attempted to block the fusion attack using a field of flames, but the Demonic Arts completely nullified the flames and the attack headed straight for the fire dragon.
The shape and spirit of the fire dragon disintegrated from the combined battle chi of Berserk God and Demonic Arts, immediately vanishing in midair, the female magician suffered from the backlash and immediately went into shock.
This woman is too strong, I can’t let her use magic again, I shouted: “Hurricane.” As my fist struck the ground, since I had used this technique in the past, the female magician knew of its power and immediately cast a thick shield on herself while her body quickly dodged to the right.
——————————————–Translated by Deception————————————————
My attack created a battle-chi strengthened shock wave, raising dust clouds in arena starting at the center. Even though the magician was not slow, she just barely managed to escape the range of the attack.
From inside the dust clouds, debris suddenly few at her, battering her defense and leaving no part of her untouched. The cloak she had been wearing had been thrown off sometime during the attack.
I took a look at her, she was truly a beauty. I didn’t think there could be a sorceress so beautiful; she was in no way inferior to Jisue. Her eyebrows were fully raised while her phoenix-like eyes revealed the power contained within her. It was clear that she was enraged by my actions.
Although she was a woman, she was also my opponent. I could not be kind towards women if they insisted on standing in my way. While she was still panicking about what to do, I rushed towards her and threw a single punch at her.
Right when I thought the blow landed, she disappeared. This wasn’t good, it was the mirror image technique. This girl was quite the mage if she could trick my intuition so easily.
I heard a crisp voice from behind me, “You really have no manners, don’t you know your opponent is a girl?”
I turned around and saw her right behind me. With a cold voice I said, “I am a warrior, not a gentleman.. Grace makes no sense to me.”
My opponent snorted and her body began to speed up so fast that I could see several mirror images of her. The spell was so good that I couldn’t tell which body was the real one.
I stood on the arena motionless as I tried to focus on where she was coming from. Suddenly, my back erupted in pain as it was hit by a fireball. My clothes were destroyed, and my back was charred. I was furious, I hated it the most when people destroyed my clothes. I shouted in anger and brandished my fists, while spreading out my battle chi to cover the arena. The arena quickly turned into a deadly environment.
My whole body exuded a strong murderous intent in all directions. My battle chi exuded with an angry force and showed no mercy. Although the female magician was strong, my strength and battle chi were definitely stronger than hers. My ferocious attacks there was no way she could resist. Each attack was too strong to be blocked.
I hadn’t used my Battle Chi in this way before, and I hadn’t realized that my Mad God battle chi had a never ending supply of energy. Before, I had to conserve my chi in order not to run out of it, but now I was throwing out punches continuously. It was actually pretty amazing.
“Student Layson, please stop. If you destroy the ring, then you will be held responsible for the costs to repair it.”
Hearing this, I hesitated momentarily before stopping. The female magician was curled up in a corner, and the entire arena was filled with rubble and scars, even the spectators around the arena had moved back dozens of meters. Even then, some of the audience members had their faces covered with dust and dirt.
As soon as I stopped attacking wildly, I was the target of everyone’s condemnation. Everyone agreed that I shouldn’t have fought so hard against a girl and said that I was a disgrace to men everywhere. But why did that matter? As far as I’m concerned, victory was what mattered in the end.
I walked to the female magician and asked, “How are you holding up?”
The female magician slowly got up and covered herself with her robes. She seemed to be traumatized by what I had done. Her lips paused for a second, the words slowly forming on the tip of her tongue., “You are so terrifying, going all out in a simple match. AH! my clothes.” Her robes split apart right over her chest, letting me see the beautiful sights of spring for a moment. My face reddened as I promptly turned away from her.
The female magicians in the crowd behind me started to cry out. Females sure are more vulnerable than guys.
With a flat voice, I asked, “Did you still want to continue?”
She shook her head desperately and said with a tearful voice, “Who would think that there was a monster who acted so badly towards girls in this tournament.” Holding her clothes to herself, she turned around, and headed down from the arena.
I thought it was lucky that the only things torn where the her clothes. The way I fought, I could have damaged her appearance, and that would be a real shame.
And so, I made a dramatic entrance into the semi-finals.
I thought Teacher Zuang would praise me for winning against this difficult of an opponent. Instead, I was yelled at by Jisue and my other classmates.
Teacher Zhuang scolded me saying, “Layson, you’re so tasteless, even though this is a tournament, you shouldn’t treat your opponents that way. Think of what would happen if you had harmed her permanently. Not only that, damaging a girls’ clothes is quite impolite.”
I was stunned, “But, you wanted me to become the champion, I needed to beat her to do so. It was only her clothes, and I didn’t think that would happen.”
Teacher Zhuang continued, “Even if you want to win the championships, you can’t disregard another person’s image like that. Even now, many teachers have come to me saying that I am teaching a crazy student.”
Even Jisue who was originally cheering me on, came and over and said, “Layson, you didn’t act correctly today. How could you be so harsh on Frosty and humiliate her in public? She’s my best friend.”
EN: LOL, random best friend coming out of nowhere.
I was speechless, I was harsh? If I didn’t act the way I did, I would have been roasted alive by her. It was obvious that she used fire magic, and yet she was named after ice. What a load of crap, even if she was somewhat pretty, I felt no attraction to her at all.
From this day on, I would have the nickname—Beauty Killer. It meant that even in a competition, I would not hold back against a beautiful girl. It also had another meaning of course, it meant that I had earned the heart of Jisue.
EN: WTF????
My opponent in the semi-final was Fenwan, another warrior. I was originally going to go easy on him, but this guy ignored me before we started fighting in the arena. Right when the referee announced the start of the match, he struck a mighty pose and said, “I am the symbol of justice, and on behalf of all the beautiful women in this school, I will be the end you!” What made it worse was that the female audience all shrieked in response to him. I felt like I was going to vomit blood. I only needed a few hard hits to knock him out of the ring.
I am not sure whether Feng Wen lost his game to win over the beauties or that he was too weak, but he lost to the female mage. in the end, the female mage and I met again in the finals.
When we got inside the arena, I wanted to deal with her gently, but she didn’t even give me the chance. She immediately surrendered the match. She didn’t seem to take the tournament seriously enough, her strong killing intent suggested that she was a strong fighter. I probably would have become the #1 most hated guy if we had fought.
The audience below the ring shouted, “How shameless, giving the champion title away just like that.”
Fortunately due to my tyrannical strength, none of the first year students would dare fight me head on.
Liwa, I have fully recovered from the humiliation I had suffered under you, my heart is full of anger.
EN: again… No idea why this is here…
As Fenwan walked into to the dorm, he whispered so quietly that I could barely hear, “Jisue is looking for you,” Based on his behavior towards me, he too was angry at me. A woman’s anger is quite far reaching, to even reach my friends. What in the world had I done wrong? I had to use stronger skills to win the match, is that not logical? Was fighting a female with your strength not right? If they were willing to leave me alone, I could live out my life normally.
I quickly walked out of the dormitory. Jisue was standing outside the door looking in, upon seeing me, she walked on over.
I asked, “How nice it is of you to look for me.”
Jisue anxiously said, “You caused quite an outrage. Frosty is quite the beautiful woman, she has stirred up trouble for you now. All of the first year students are now your enemies, and even some of the older students have joined in. You’ll have to be careful when you step outside from now on.”
My eyes flashed with murderous rage, even if I’m not a good-natured person at heart, they still decided to mess with me. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and with a cold voice, I said,
“I hope that whoever dares to cause me trouble is tired of living.”
Jisue grabbed my hand and said, “What are you planning to do? You’re scaring me, don’t be like this okay?”
“I won’t submit to these people, I won’t be a prisoner. If they want to deal with me, they better be prepared to pay the price.”
Jisue released my hands, her eyes turning red, “How can you be like this, I originally came here to advise you to go admit your mistake to Frosty, and I could put in some good words so that you can stop this fiasco. But you’re going to go make the matter even worse.”
My fury soared even higher, coldly, I said, “Even you don’t understand me, do I look like the type of person that would bow and bend my knee towards others? Hmph!”
With that said, I turned around to walk back towards my room, what kind of person was Frosty? She was not content causing trouble between my classmates and I, she had to drive a wedge between me and Jisue. If I see her again, I’ll show her how difficult I am to deal with.
Reaching my room, I fell onto my bed. Thinking about Jisue’ delicate figure, my heart couldn’t help but soften a bit. I’ll go look for her tomorrow, If I take the initiative tomorrow, then we would be able to bury the problem for sure. No, no no, that won’t do, I’d lose face if I did that. I definitely couldn’t go. The two opposing thoughts swam around my head, and at last, I reached a decision. I’ll stay away from Jisue until first to fight against Liwa, and then I’ll go see her.
The next morning, I went over to the College Dean’s office and registered to fight Liwa.
Teacher Zhuang didn’t say anything when she saw me, after all, she is my teacher. Oddly she did say, “Why is it that this year we have two people challenging the representative of the 5th years? Liwa’s strength isn’t the same as that of an average student.” She implied that I was overestimating myself.
I was surprised, “Who else is challenging him?”
Janfen said, “There is a third year named Jiyan challenging him as well.”
I was shocked, Jiyan, why would she challenge Liwa? I quickly asked, “How will we deal with these 2 challenges then?”
Janfen gave it some thought, “According to the school rules, if there are some champions from the lower years that want to challenge the higher year champions, the lower year champions have to fight each other first. In other words, you and JIyan must fight each other before you can fight Liwa.”
Coming out from the Dean’s office, I was overwhelmed by my emotions. Why was Jiyan challenging Liwa? Wasn’t Liwa constantly chasing after her? If they fight against each other, then the outcome would be unclear. Is Liwa be capable of harming Jiyan? I’m sure he wouldn’t, could it be Jisue was letting her older sister do what she could to block my match against Liwa? Yes, this had to be the reason why.
At the end of the school period, all of the participants were on holiday, so most people were packing up in their dorms to prepare to go home. Jisue should be at home as well.
Walking out of the school, I went straight to the Duke’s mansion. I wanted to go find Jisue and clear things up between us; I have made great efforts in order to fight against Liwa. I never would had though that there would be such an obstacle blocking my way.
Walking into the Duke’s mansion, I asked a servant to help me get a message across. After a while, Jisue came walking out with a somewhat pale complexion, as if looking at me was hurting her.
Jisue said to me with a clipped voice, “How did you get here?”
I let out a breath of air, “Are you not going to invite me inside first?”
Jisue looked deeply at me and said: “Follow me.” I followed her and entered the duke’s mansion.
Chapter 11: Grade Champion (or champion of the grade)
Teacher Zuang said: “Be swift as the wind.” [TL: in chinese it is 3 words]
Fenwan mumbled: “Swift as the wind, swift as the wind.”
Teacher Zuang turned and said to me: “Layson, although you didn’t lose today, you always exhaust yourself during your fights, you aren’t able to take advantage of your body’s superiority.”
I said shocked: “I didn’t use my superiority?”
Teacher Zuang nodded: “Do you remember the first fight you won in the battle for the position of cheif?”
I said: “The one against Hoxin?”
Teacher Zuang said: “That’s right, do you still remember how you won?”
I nodded: “Of course, I purposely took his hit and then threw him off the arena. Are you trying to say…”
Teacher Zuang nodded: “That’s right, although I don’t know what battle chi you have been practicing, but I can see that your body’s defense is very high. Your natural physique added to the astonishing defense of your battle chi defense has so much potential, but you waste it. My three words to you is – Steady as a mountain. Speed is not your forte, instead focus on your strength and defense, understand?”
I nodded my head happily, Teacher Zuang’s words made me feel as though everything in my head had cleared up, as if I caught on to some profound truth. [ED: Just for all those CD fans out there (I added profound into the text)]
Both Fenwan and I were still pondering on Teacher Zuang’s advice as we left her office. Just outised the office building, we ran into a group of first years from the magic track, upon seeing our condition they started laughing at us.
“Look, aren’t those two from that dumb class? How come they look like this, it looks as if they were electrified by lightning magic and then they were burned by fire magic.”
“I’m guessing they did something bad and a teacher punished them.”
………
Fenwan and I lifted our heads up, Fenwan whispered: “This is too embarrassing, let’s hurry and return to our dorm.” Both of us each made a strange hiss, scaring the students watching from the side and we hurriedly ran back to our dorm.
I took a quick shower and changed into a clean set of clothes, Fenwan and I finally let out a sigh, he said to me: “Old Lay, I can’t hold up anymore, I’m so tired, I need to go rest.” When did I become “Old Lay”, am I that old?
I nodded: “Bye, I am also going back.”
Fenwan smiled: “The tournament will start the day after tomorrow, let’s do our best.”
I said: “You too, I hope that I will run into you during the grade-wide matches.”
On the way back to the room, I thought about Teacher Zuang’s words, “Steady as a mountain,” how can I make full use of my body’s high defense?
“Layson, you’re back.”
I turned and took a look, and saw that it was Jisue, I smiled at her: “You waited for me here?”
Jisue nodded: “It’s already so late, don’t you usually return early in the afternoon back to the dorm to practice? I asked Fenyun, he said he didn’t see you.”
I answered: “We held a test in class today to select our participants for the end of the term tournament.”
Jisue held on to my arm: “You were selected, weren’t you?”
I pinched her cute little nose: “Why do you have so much confidence in me? There are many people with great strength in this school.”
Jisue said: “I believe in only you, because you also have great strength.”
I nodded: “Then what about you, are you going to join the tournament?”
Jisue said: “My magic level is not that high, how can I participate in the tournament. (Jisue is a 2nd year magic class student, mostly practicing water magic.) Older sister entered for the 2nd year competition, but her light magic is very famous.”
I smiled: “She is the brilliant student of the vice-principal, it’s inevitable she’s going to participate.”
Jisue wrinkled her small nose: “Sister didn’t rely on her connections to join the tournament, she entered based on her true strength. But Layson, If you become the grade-wide champion, are you really going to challenge Liwa?”
My face darkened: “Definitely, if I become the grade-wide champion, I have to challenge him, if I run from him, it’ll affect my future practice, especially my mentality.”
Jisue sighed: “Although you are very strong…”
I smiled: “What, do you also look down on me?”
Jisue hastily shook her head: “It’s not like that, I absolutely believe in you, but Liwa is the number 1 fighter in the whole school, and he’s not that easily defeated, I’m worried that you might get hurt.”
I said: “No need to worry, I’m very thick-skinned. If anyone wants to hurt me, it’s not that easy. Relax, even if I don’t win, nothing will happen to me.”
Jisue nodded: “Alright, if you can promise your safety, I will be at ease.”
Sending Jisue off, I returned to the dorm, continuing to mull over Teacher Zuang’s words…
Two days later, a term closing ceremony was held. It was just a formality of the academy, It talked about how the students worked hard this semester and how they hope that everyone will continue to work hard and become stronger while taking even bigger steps towards improving themselves.
After the closing ceremony, Janfen, the Director of the Teaching Department, walked onto the platform and announced: “The Sky City Institute’s Annual Martial Tournament will now begin, all the participants of each grade should head to their appointed match.”
Today is the first round of the competition, the rules are very simple, 12 people will separate into two groups, (the grades with 5 classes will have 10 people separate into 2 groups), then the top two students in each group will be chosen to qualify and participate in the playoffs. That is, if I think it is necessary to participate in all seven rounds to become the grade champion. [ED: not sure what this is supposed to mean, maybe the director can select the grade-wide champion based on what he sees?]
Fenwan and I were separated into two different groups, I looked around for a familiar face, But I have never seen any of the participants in this group before (since entering the school and becoming injured, I’ve been in confinement, so I have not seen a lot of people), Teacher Zuang called Fenwan and I to her side, instructing us before the fight: “You two have to be careful, Layson, if you run into the fighting class it will be easy for you to take care of, but for the magic classes you have to be careful, the students of the magic classes usually has some strange magic up their sleeves, take caution. Fenwan, as for you, you have to fully bring out your speed, you can’t give your opponent a chance, using the shortest time to get the best result, although the number of classes I’ve taught isn’t high, I know that you are the most talented first year students I have ever seen, don’t make teacher be disappointed.”
I nodded my head firmly, turning to go to my own arena.
Since it’s a round-robin tournament, our two groups will hold three rounds of competition today, the competition begins at the same time, and my first opponent is from the warrior class, from his looks he seems very tough, with a height around 180cm, his whole body is packed with shocking muscles.
The referee called us to the front: “Martial-magic class Layson vs Warrior class Xili. The rules are very simple, you can’t strike aiming for death or to inflict permanent wounds [dismemberment], you can’t use restricted weapons (usually one uses the school’s provided weapons). If the participant gets kicked off stage or is unable to continue the battle, they lose, of course forfeiting is also allowed, understand?”
I quickly nodded and started to circulate the Berserk God’s battle chi throughout my entire body, when Xili first saw me, his eyes were filled with surprise, I imagined that he thought, how can this fellow be in the magic-martial class, he looks to be bigger than me by a size, he’s definitely not going to be easy to deal with.
I proudly stood on the arena: “Come.” [ED: many thanks to anon, you know who you are.]
Xili snorted: “You don’t use any weapons?”
I raised my fist, waving: “This is my best weapon, you can use whatever you want.”
Xili thought that I was looking down on him, and his eyes immediately raged with anger, bitterly saying: “Fine, you asked for this, don’t blame me later.” As he said so, He took a fine iron spear from the weapon rack and said: “Look out.”
It will definitely be more comfortable to fight with a pure martial fighter, at least it won’t be like last time, where I was against those 3rd year martial-magic class seniors, in which I needed to defend against their magic as well as attacks.
Although Xili looked very boorish, but he’s not a pure strength fighter, with a shake of his spear, many after shadows appeared immediately and rushed at me.
I thought to myself that although his power was very good, his strength was dispersed, so against me it was not enough to harm me. I did not dodge and just stood there, waiting for his spear to descend on me.
My behavior immediately surprised Xili, he thought I would have some technique or magic, in his eyes when he saw the spear was about to hit my body, he suddenly retracted and all the spear shadows became one again, quickly piercing to the front.
The spear was not sharp, I breathed in deeply and concentrated the Berserk God’s battle chi to the front of my chest, and just like this I took his attack head on.
The spear bent, and Xili felt as if he hit a metal board, not even able to injure me a little. From the corner of my mouth appeared a cold smile, and in one second I had grabbed on to his spear, sending my battle chi to my hand which became a light yellow color and bent his spear. Soon the tip of the spear was pushing down on his shoulder, I said: “Still want to continue?
Xili tried to struggle free, but the spear on his shoulder felt like ten thousand great burdens, he had no way to move even a little. On his forehead cold sweat appeared, I saw he was still unwilling to give in and pressed down with even more force with the spear still in my hands. Xili immediately kneeled on one knee under my pressure, I immediately shouted: “If you don’t want to embarrass yourself, admit defeat.”
Xili knew that he could not win against me when it came to strength, and he also did not get to show his specialty. Although in his heart there was a kind of vexation, he couldn’t help but say: “OK, I admit defeat.”
I raised the spear and threw it at him, turning to get off the stage, Xili shouted: “If I run into you again later, I will definitely not let you win this easily.”
I turned to give him a disdainful smile: “If you can persevere, I look forward to it anytime.”
Walking off the field, Teacher Zhuang came over and said to me: “You did very well, the opponent basically had no chance to fight back.”
I smiled: “This is all thanks to your advice.”
In the following days, I passed 3 rounds smoothly, and took a good grade of 4 battles, 4 wins. Today is the last round of the group competition, no matter who wins, I will enter the top 4. Today’s opponent is a student from the magic class, Teacher Zhuang said up until now he also has had 4 battles and 4 wins. In this fight today we will decide who will become the number 1 of this group.
In the other little group, Fenwan relied on his ghost-like movements and surpassed everything else, their group competition already and Fenwan came out top, the second was a martial warrior.
I walked up the arena, and my opponent was dressed in a standard magician’s robe, I only just realized right before the round that my opponent today is a girl (I don’t mean in any way to discriminate).
My opponent was wrapped in a thick red full-body gown, and the cloak on top of her head was pressed very low, I could not see her appearance since she only exposed a translucent white hand and she held a long magic staff her hands, and a snake was carved on top of the staff in some special material, the top of the staff was the snake mouth which held a huge magic crystal. From a glance I could tell it was a very high quality staff. Teacher Zhuang said, this girl’s true power was very strong, the ones before me had no way to defeat her formidable magic.
After all the opponent is a girl, I nodded slightly at her, the female magician raised her magic staff, when the referee announced the start of the match, her magic staff immediately sent a long fireball and flew towards me, what a fast casting speed. In a rush I threw out a few ice cones, canceling out most of her attack. When the other fireballs neared towards me, with my fist one at a time, I also took care of them this way.
While I was resisting against the fireballs, she started to lightly sway her magic staff, and from her mouth was an endless low chant, obviously she wanted to continuously use magic and not give me a chance to get close.
I also didn’t rush to attack, I want to see what she can throw at me. These few days I never really bump into a true opponent and I felt very gloomy at winning easily. It did not satisfy me, I can only improve myself in dificult fights.
At this time, her magic was already completed, the magic staff in her hands drew out a beautiful red hexagram, from my experience at the library reading magic books, I knew, this was at least a grade 5 and above magic, it’s definitely not easy to deal with. As I expected, I heard her sharp and clear voice: “The dormant God of fire, release your energy, wake, god’s protector, Descend of the Fire Dragon.” No, this is not a grade 5 magic, it’s a grade 6!
M2t5 here. GUESS WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I got a new Translator :D:D::D:D:D:D::D:D:D::D::D:D:D::D. As you can see I’m very excited to welcome Demenious to ItranslateLN. WELCOME! This half chapter was partially done by Hurraycats, then I managed to ask TaffyGirl13 and Deception (from GravTrans) to finish it. So please give a big thank you to all three of them. This is the last material I have from Hurray, and I have marked where his translations stop, and where Deception and Taffy’s start. As of now I have 5 pages of the next Chapter Translated, so I hope we can meet next Sunday’s chapter deadline….
Thanks for those of you who have stayed with me the whole time, I have enjoyed reading your comments and seeing how much you enjoyed the series. Hopefully we will be able to stick to, or surpass our 1 chapter a week schedule we had previously.
Enjoy this chapter and welcome Demenious to the team! (we are now off hiatus)
Btw: editing chapters will push back dates on my FF.
I was alarmed, although my defense was very high, it could not withstand such powerful magic. In the meantime, the roar of a dragon came from within the red magic hexagram, and a small dragon flew out from the magic array, baring its teeth and claws at me. It stayed between the girl and I.
I circulated the Berserk God’s chi throughout my entire body while I stored the Demonic Arts away and calmly looked at the fire dragon. From the slight tremble of her staff, I could tell this magic was not easy for the girl magician to hold up, she brandished the staff and commanded the fire dragon to attack me.
The fire dragon had just started moving towards me and I could already feel the heat scorching my face. What a strong flame, no wonder it is ranked as the highest grade mid-level magic. I immediately punched towards the Dragon, increasing the range of the punch with the chi of the Berserk God. The light yellow battle chi of the Berserk God accurately hit the head of the fire dragon. The whole fire dragon shrunk a little, but it’s overall appearance did not change, and it continued towards me.
I was not shock, but rather quite happy. I was surprised that my battle chi could actually diminish the intensity of the magic. I learned later on that teacher Zuang had already told everyone this fact, but since I had missed so much of class, I did not know.
I sent out few waves of battle chi whenever the dragon came to attack me. While the battle chi slowed down the fire dragon, and reduced its strength, the girl magician constantly fed the dragon fire, boosting the magic once again.
I realised that at this rate the match would become a stalemate. I could already smell the hair burnt off my arms from my punches, if I got hit by this, my body could survive, but my clothes and hair would be burned off. Even if I didn’t get hurt, I still couldn’t land a decisive blow to this person… It’s so troublesome fighting against a magician.
I sneakily bound my Demonic Arts inside of the Berserk God’s battle chi, sending out ten fusion waves in quick succession. Since the power of the Demonic Arts was surrounded by the Berserk God’s battle chi, no one could tell the difference between this attack and the others I had sent out previously.
I used all my power in this attack, causing all the clothes on my body to bulge up. A pure yellow light rushed towards the fire dragon. The dragon attempted to block the fusion attack using a field of flames, but the Demonic Arts completely nullified the flames and the attack headed straight for the fire dragon.
The shape and spirit of the fire dragon disintegrated from the combined battle chi of Berserk God and Demonic Arts, immediately vanishing in midair, the female magician suffered from the backlash and immediately went into shock.
This woman is too strong, I can’t let her use magic again, I shouted: “Hurricane.” As my fist struck the ground, since I had used this technique in the past, the female magician knew of its power and immediately cast a thick shield on herself while her body quickly dodged to the right.
——————————————–Translated by Deception————————————————
My attack created a battle-chi strengthened shock wave, raising dust clouds in arena starting at the center. Even though the magician was not slow, she just barely managed to escape the range of the attack.
From inside the dust clouds, debris suddenly few at her, battering her defense and leaving no part of her untouched. The cloak she had been wearing had been thrown off sometime during the attack.
I took a look at her, she was truly a beauty. I didn’t think there could be a sorceress so beautiful; she was in no way inferior to Jisue. Her eyebrows were fully raised while her phoenix-like eyes revealed the power contained within her. It was clear that she was enraged by my actions.
Although she was a woman, she was also my opponent. I could not be kind towards women if they insisted on standing in my way. While she was still panicking about what to do, I rushed towards her and threw a single punch at her.
Right when I thought the blow landed, she disappeared. This wasn’t good, it was the mirror image technique. This girl was quite the mage if she could trick my intuition so easily.
I heard a crisp voice from behind me, “You really have no manners, don’t you know your opponent is a girl?”
I turned around and saw her right behind me. With a cold voice I said, “I am a warrior, not a gentleman.. Grace makes no sense to me.”
My opponent snorted and her body began to speed up so fast that I could see several mirror images of her. The spell was so good that I couldn’t tell which body was the real one.
I stood on the arena motionless as I tried to focus on where she was coming from. Suddenly, my back erupted in pain as it was hit by a fireball. My clothes were destroyed, and my back was charred. I was furious, I hated it the most when people destroyed my clothes. I shouted in anger and brandished my fists, while spreading out my battle chi to cover the arena. The arena quickly turned into a deadly environment.
My whole body exuded a strong murderous intent in all directions. My battle chi exuded with an angry force and showed no mercy. Although the female magician was strong, my strength and battle chi were definitely stronger than hers. My ferocious attacks there was no way she could resist. Each attack was too strong to be blocked.
I hadn’t used my Battle Chi in this way before, and I hadn’t realized that my Mad God battle chi had a never ending supply of energy. Before, I had to conserve my chi in order not to run out of it, but now I was throwing out punches continuously. It was actually pretty amazing.
“Student Layson, please stop. If you destroy the ring, then you will be held responsible for the costs to repair it.”
Hearing this, I hesitated momentarily before stopping. The female magician was curled up in a corner, and the entire arena was filled with rubble and scars, even the spectators around the arena had moved back dozens of meters. Even then, some of the audience members had their faces covered with dust and dirt.
As soon as I stopped attacking wildly, I was the target of everyone’s condemnation. Everyone agreed that I shouldn’t have fought so hard against a girl and said that I was a disgrace to men everywhere. But why did that matter? As far as I’m concerned, victory was what mattered in the end.
I walked to the female magician and asked, “How are you holding up?”
The female magician slowly got up and covered herself with her robes. She seemed to be traumatized by what I had done. Her lips paused for a second, the words slowly forming on the tip of her tongue., “You are so terrifying, going all out in a simple match. AH! my clothes.” Her robes split apart right over her chest, letting me see the beautiful sights of spring for a moment. My face reddened as I promptly turned away from her.
The female magicians in the crowd behind me started to cry out. Females sure are more vulnerable than guys.
With a flat voice, I asked, “Did you still want to continue?”
She shook her head desperately and said with a tearful voice, “Who would think that there was a monster who acted so badly towards girls in this tournament.” Holding her clothes to herself, she turned around, and headed down from the arena.
I thought it was lucky that the only things torn where the her clothes. The way I fought, I could have damaged her appearance, and that would be a real shame.
And so, I made a dramatic entrance into the semi-finals.
I thought Teacher Zuang would praise me for winning against this difficult of an opponent. Instead, I was yelled at by Jisue and my other classmates.
Teacher Zhuang scolded me saying, “Layson, you’re so tasteless, even though this is a tournament, you shouldn’t treat your opponents that way. Think of what would happen if you had harmed her permanently. Not only that, damaging a girls’ clothes is quite impolite.”
I was stunned, “But, you wanted me to become the champion, I needed to beat her to do so. It was only her clothes, and I didn’t think that would happen.”
Teacher Zhuang continued, “Even if you want to win the championships, you can’t disregard another person’s image like that. Even now, many teachers have come to me saying that I am teaching a crazy student.”
Even Jisue who was originally cheering me on, came and over and said, “Layson, you didn’t act correctly today. How could you be so harsh on Frosty and humiliate her in public? She’s my best friend.”
EN: LOL, random best friend coming out of nowhere.
I was speechless, I was harsh? If I didn’t act the way I did, I would have been roasted alive by her. It was obvious that she used fire magic, and yet she was named after ice. What a load of crap, even if she was somewhat pretty, I felt no attraction to her at all.
From this day on, I would have the nickname—Beauty Killer. It meant that even in a competition, I would not hold back against a beautiful girl. It also had another meaning of course, it meant that I had earned the heart of Jisue.
EN: WTF????
My opponent in the semi-final was Fenwan, another warrior. I was originally going to go easy on him, but this guy ignored me before we started fighting in the arena. Right when the referee announced the start of the match, he struck a mighty pose and said, “I am the symbol of justice, and on behalf of all the beautiful women in this school, I will be the end you!” What made it worse was that the female audience all shrieked in response to him. I felt like I was going to vomit blood. I only needed a few hard hits to knock him out of the ring.
I am not sure whether Feng Wen lost his game to win over the beauties or that he was too weak, but he lost to the female mage. in the end, the female mage and I met again in the finals.
When we got inside the arena, I wanted to deal with her gently, but she didn’t even give me the chance. She immediately surrendered the match. She didn’t seem to take the tournament seriously enough, her strong killing intent suggested that she was a strong fighter. I probably would have become the #1 most hated guy if we had fought.
The audience below the ring shouted, “How shameless, giving the champion title away just like that.”
Fortunately due to my tyrannical strength, none of the first year students would dare fight me head on.
Liwa, I have fully recovered from the humiliation I had suffered under you, my heart is full of anger.
EN: again… No idea why this is here…
As Fenwan walked into to the dorm, he whispered so quietly that I could barely hear, “Jisue is looking for you,” Based on his behavior towards me, he too was angry at me. A woman’s anger is quite far reaching, to even reach my friends. What in the world had I done wrong? I had to use stronger skills to win the match, is that not logical? Was fighting a female with your strength not right? If they were willing to leave me alone, I could live out my life normally.
I quickly walked out of the dormitory. Jisue was standing outside the door looking in, upon seeing me, she walked on over.
I asked, “How nice it is of you to look for me.”
Jisue anxiously said, “You caused quite an outrage. Frosty is quite the beautiful woman, she has stirred up trouble for you now. All of the first year students are now your enemies, and even some of the older students have joined in. You’ll have to be careful when you step outside from now on.”
My eyes flashed with murderous rage, even if I’m not a good-natured person at heart, they still decided to mess with me. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and with a cold voice, I said,
“I hope that whoever dares to cause me trouble is tired of living.”
Jisue grabbed my hand and said, “What are you planning to do? You’re scaring me, don’t be like this okay?”
“I won’t submit to these people, I won’t be a prisoner. If they want to deal with me, they better be prepared to pay the price.”
Jisue released my hands, her eyes turning red, “How can you be like this, I originally came here to advise you to go admit your mistake to Frosty, and I could put in some good words so that you can stop this fiasco. But you’re going to go make the matter even worse.”
My fury soared even higher, coldly, I said, “Even you don’t understand me, do I look like the type of person that would bow and bend my knee towards others? Hmph!”
With that said, I turned around to walk back towards my room, what kind of person was Frosty? She was not content causing trouble between my classmates and I, she had to drive a wedge between me and Jisue. If I see her again, I’ll show her how difficult I am to deal with.
Reaching my room, I fell onto my bed. Thinking about Jisue’ delicate figure, my heart couldn’t help but soften a bit. I’ll go look for her tomorrow, If I take the initiative tomorrow, then we would be able to bury the problem for sure. No, no no, that won’t do, I’d lose face if I did that. I definitely couldn’t go. The two opposing thoughts swam around my head, and at last, I reached a decision. I’ll stay away from Jisue until first to fight against Liwa, and then I’ll go see her.
The next morning, I went over to the College Dean’s office and registered to fight Liwa.
Teacher Zhuang didn’t say anything when she saw me, after all, she is my teacher. Oddly she did say, “Why is it that this year we have two people challenging the representative of the 5th years? Liwa’s strength isn’t the same as that of an average student.” She implied that I was overestimating myself.
I was surprised, “Who else is challenging him?”
Janfen said, “There is a third year named Jiyan challenging him as well.”
I was shocked, Jiyan, why would she challenge Liwa? I quickly asked, “How will we deal with these 2 challenges then?”
Janfen gave it some thought, “According to the school rules, if there are some champions from the lower years that want to challenge the higher year champions, the lower year champions have to fight each other first. In other words, you and JIyan must fight each other before you can fight Liwa.”
Coming out from the Dean’s office, I was overwhelmed by my emotions. Why was Jiyan challenging Liwa? Wasn’t Liwa constantly chasing after her? If they fight against each other, then the outcome would be unclear. Is Liwa be capable of harming Jiyan? I’m sure he wouldn’t, could it be Jisue was letting her older sister do what she could to block my match against Liwa? Yes, this had to be the reason why.
At the end of the school period, all of the participants were on holiday, so most people were packing up in their dorms to prepare to go home. Jisue should be at home as well.
Walking out of the school, I went straight to the Duke’s mansion. I wanted to go find Jisue and clear things up between us; I have made great efforts in order to fight against Liwa. I never would had though that there would be such an obstacle blocking my way.
Walking into the Duke’s mansion, I asked a servant to help me get a message across. After a while, Jisue came walking out with a somewhat pale complexion, as if looking at me was hurting her.
Jisue said to me with a clipped voice, “How did you get here?”
I let out a breath of air, “Are you not going to invite me inside first?”
Jisue looked deeply at me and said: “Follow me.” I followed her and entered the duke’s mansion.
