Chapter 8:Bo City Ceremony

The wheel of time had turned once more and time for Bo City's traditional battle for young mages had come again. The battle would be between Cao Guang who was representing the High school and Mu Lin, Mu Feng's elder sister who was representing the families of Bo.

The battle was taking place at the Bo City arena and all the influential people had come including Mu Zhuoyun, Mu He and Zhan Kong. Mu Zhuoyun had the intention of recruiting Cao Guang and Gao Xuan previously. He had planned to make contact with them through the annual test of the students. 

As one of their biggest donors, Tian Lan High school who allow such matters. However, both of them had joined the army and were now under the new commander of Bo City's military base, Zhan Kong.

He was initially displeased with Zhan Kong's appointment and the recruitment of the two geniuses. There was very little he could about the former and as for the latter. He had heard that Zhan Kong was a descendant of an large clan and was punished for his mistakes and sent to Bo City.

Now all he could do was improve his own advantage by nurturing another talent for the main family, therefore he had prepared some equipment for Mu Lin.

"It's a good thing to allow equipment in the competition" said Mu He with a wild grin on his face.

"Might not be enough" sighed Mu Zhuoyun "Zhan Kong made a quite a break recruiting those two. I heard that he had a third recruit he was nurturing personally. Besides he is still young and still has a chance of becoming a Super mage even if he's lost favour with his family"

"We'll keep ourselves in check. What does brother want to do about that child. Ningxue needs to focus on her cultivation".

"Ignore him, as long as Ningxue improves" said Mu Zhuoyun with a rare hint of pride on his face.

His wife had passed away sometime ago. But he had held on and watched Ningxue grow, he didn't expect her to be so talented. She caught the eye of the main family. They predicted that she may awaken preemptively. 

So Mu Zhuoyun had been focusing on her development. He was only an intermediate Mage and could not be much help to her so he followed a development plan devised by the main family. For now she was learning knowledge about magedom.

Besides Mo Jiaxing and he went back. They had grown up together. He was a little unwilling to be harsh on his child although he knew his brother disapproved. 

"Let's focus on the match first" said Mu Zhuoyun as Cao Guang and Mu Lin took their place.

" Contestants you will fight above board. The match will be over when one of you is deemed unable to continue" said the judge to Cao Guang and Mu Lin.

Cao Guang had improved rapidly with the Little Tora pendant's help. He had reached second-tier in both of his elements and he was even close to third tier of the Summoning element.

The second-tier spell of Summoning element made it possible for his summoned beast to remain longer in the real world and reduced the spells consumption on him. The all levels of Summoning elements were like this.

Inside Cao Guang's Spiritual World seven transparent Star dusts of Summoning element and those of fire element stayed parallel to each other and as they lit up the dark sky.

Currently only Zhan Kong and Gao Xuan knew about his talent and his extra element. Cao Guang was not willing to display his fire element right now. So he focused himself by recalling Mu Lin's information.

She had reached third-tier of the primary level, but the only two things he was worried about was equipment she had and her casting speed. Currently the only equipment he had was a Departing Nether Shield which Zhan Kong had loaned to him.

He could keep the Shield if he won this match. The shield had decent defensive capabilities and sneak attack. After the shield had received a blow he could activate a retaliatory strike called Bone Spike thrust, but it had a distance limit of ten metres.

Cao Guang activated his Summoning spell as soon as the judge started the match. As he expected Mu Lin was faster than him in casting. But he had no choice he was year younger and a level lower than her.

His control was not high enough to cast the spell while dodging. So he activated the Departing Nether Shield and decided to nullify her spell.

"Ice spread : Cover "

However, it was to his advantage just as he had predicted, the ice element usually grew stronger as casting time went on and he would not give the time. He activated the Bone spike and forced Mu Lin to stop her casting and evade.

But he had completed his own spell as a transparent Star Orbit appeared beneath his a grey white wolf jumped out of the Summoning plane howling.

"Flank her from the right" Cao Guang gave the order. One of the reasons why Cao Guang made a summoning contract with a spirit wolf was because they were among the more intelligent creatures. Although they were aggressive and reckless they could taught some simple stuff even at the servant class.

But the wolf would still bring him trouble. Picking a fight every other day and getting injured was a routine for Fenrir. Lucky for him there was a primary level at the military base.

Cao Guang had strictly forbade the wolf from picking fights recently and had managed to convince him as well.

He fed the wolf the remaining energy of the Stardusts often. Hence the wolf agreed to not to pick fights without his master's permission.

Fenrir had improved a bit using the energy from the Stardusts and Cao Guang was prepared to improve his wolf by changing his blood and using other resources, but these were long term projects to prepare for the next evolution.

The wolf attacked Mu Lin from the right, to her left the bone spike blocked her path. Lacking the time to cast a spell she used her equipment. She had a equipment that used to the wind trail spell for movement and a defensive shield as well.

A guest of wind helped her retreat twenty metres from the wolf as Cao Guang recalled the Bone spike. She prepared to cast the ice spell again but this time she was interrupted by Fenrir who closed her down before she finished the spell, forcing her to activate her final equipment.

"To the left" Cao Guang had no choice but give simple instructions from the side as Fenrir charged Mu Lin down.

Fenrir was startled as his fur was frozen. Mu Lin used the shield as cover to launch her spell infuriating the wolf. Fenrir moved to the left as he was ordered and charged her down again.

A single primary spell was not enough to kill a servant class demon beast but it was a third-tier spell and would grow stronger by time.

But the defensive shield had time limits and cooldown. Cao Guang intended to take advantage of that.

Fenrir charged Mu Lin thrice before the shield ran out. It was a pretty impressive piece of equipment, probably targeted at himself. 

"That's it" the judge declared before stopping the wolf " the victor is Cao Guang" declared the judge as Mu Lin was unable to go on.

She had time to evade and her spell didn't freeze the wolf fast enough.Fenrir didn't get out unscraped his left was frozen and his limbs were stiff as well. He was shivering from the cold.

" Hit the wall" ordered Cao Guang inorder to break the ice while keeping his fire element a secret. "I'll have you healed later" he said to Fenrir as the wolf returned to him after breaking the ice.

Woo 

"Yes, yes I haven't forgotten the reward. I'll give the energy as well" said he consoling a whimpering wolf.

---

"You know how it works prepare a week's worth of supplies and meet me inform chamber of commerce building at City centre tommorow at 8" said Mu Zhuoyun curtly to him.

The reward for the competition was naturally a week cultivating near the Underground Holy Spring. He was hoping to break through his Summoning element again during this time.

He reported himself to Zhan Kong and shamelessly collected the Departing Nether Shield permanently before healing his wolf and rewarding it. The Departing Nether Shield was not allocated by the military to him, instead it was gifted by Zhan Kong personally.

The military would give him such resources after he reached peak of the primary level atleast. This was their way of saying 'You're too weak stay inside the city'.

"As expected of big brother" said Gao Xuan cheekily to him.

"Hmph" snorted Song Xia coldly. She was disatisfied that the military could not take part in the competition.

----

"Congratulations on winning the competition, naturally the school will get more benefits thanks to you. The resources from the department of education is not enough to cultivate all talents so naturally the school will be in your debt for this matter" said a beaming Principal Zhu to him 

He had naturally considered that there would some benefits attached to the school if he won. But he didn't consider asking for a cut as they most likely would be better awakening stone or more Stardust magic tools for the next year. These wouldn't help him anymore.

Why? Because each awakening stone was different. Only the lowest level of awakening stone could help in awakening primary mages. Higher mages needed better awakening stones. Hence it was expensive to unlock the elements one wanted.

Plenty of mages would go bankrupt just because of this. But there was no chance of failure so in the worse scenario you would awaken a different element.