Jeremy paid absolutely no mind to the chatter of his teammates around him.
At this moment, his body felt as though it had been thrown into the alternating torment of freezing ice and blazing fire. Every muscle fiber, every inch of vein beneath his skin seemed to be torn apart by an invisible force, only to be frantically regenerated and healed in the blink of an eye.
He clenched his jaw so tightly that the pungent taste of blood seeped into his mouth. Did every mage have to grit their teeth and endure this kind of destructive agony when breaking through a star level?
Jeremy’s eyes darkened. The concept of the "law of equivalent exchange," briefly recorded in ancient books, was now being carved into his very flesh in the most ruthless manner.
The bone-deep pain gradually eroded his clarity. Just as his consciousness was about to sink into darkness, deep within his murky soul sea, the elemental specks of light finally yielded. They frantically closed in, intertwined, and detonated, condensing into a tiny natal star that radiated a brilliant, sparkling light floating upon the still water.
The first star... was a success.
The invisible pressure weighing heavily on his chest suddenly vanished. Jeremy was just about to ease his breathing and withdraw his magic power to exit his meditative state when another anomaly occurred.
The remaining elemental streaks of light in the soul sea did not settle down. On the contrary, stimulated by the gravitational pull from the first star, they began to surge automatically, spinning frantically into one another with the intention of coalescing into a second star!
Jeremy’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, but immediately relaxed. An anomaly was sometimes an opportunity. Noticing that the magic beasts outside had not yet posed a threat, he took a deep breath, borrowed the boiling flow of magic power, and decisively pushed his limits one step further.
Surprisingly, this time there was no horrific tearing like before. The needle-like prickling sensation when condensing the second natal star passed very quickly, gradually replaced by a soothing warmth. His entire body was enveloped in a warm aura, so comfortable that his tense muscles unconsciously relaxed, just as if he had immersed himself in a healing hot spring.
When the second star shone brightly alongside the first, all the excess specks of light floating in the sea of consciousness completely dissolved.
Jeremy snapped his eyes open. His body’s current limit had reached its peak; forcing it further would lead to his body exploding. He decisively withdrew his consciousness.
However, the very moment his eyelashes lifted, a flawless face was magnified intimately close right in his line of sight.
"Captain! Congratulations on breaking through two star levels at once~"
Setting aside the unpredictable and bewitching personality inside, looking solely at his outward facade, Lucius’s face truly possessed no bad angles. The radiant smile constantly on his lips, combined with the silver hair lightly drooping over his forehead, made Lucius currently exude the aura of a harmless, profoundly enchanting angel.
As the old saying goes, one does not slap a smiling face. Jeremy leaned back slightly to widen the distance, nodding coldly yet politely: "Thank you."
Lucius did not mind Jeremy’s retreat in the slightest; on the contrary, he leaned in even closer. The tip of Lucius’s nose twitched, his phoenix eyes narrowing slightly: "There is a pungent smell of blood coming from you, Captain. Did your body suffer a backlash?"
Jeremy cast his eyes down at his bloodstained cloak, replying calmly: "I am fine."
The completion of the leveling process meant that his connective tissues were automatically healing; he had more than enough strength to stand firm without anyone’s support. Jeremy was just about to stand up and leave, but Lucius reached out to stop him. Right in the center of Lucius’s palm, a transparent potion vial emitting a pale yellow light slowly materialized.
Jeremy’s gaze unconsciously slid down to the other party’s hand. Lucius’s fingers were long and slender, the sturdy joints clearly defined, as well-proportioned as a sculpture. Because Lucius’s skin was so white it bordered on pale, the fleshy pads at his fingertips inadvertently flushed a light pink. Faint blue veins ran along the back of his hand, exuding a dangerously ascetic charm.
Lucius curled the corners of his lips, his tone carrying a clear, somewhat ingratiating note: "A high-grade healing potion, presented as tribute to our great Captain."
Jeremy’s impression of this person, aside from being unfathomably deep, was his habit of closing the distance in an extremely natural way. Beneath the ruthless, cunning smile, there always seemed to be an innocent disguise akin to a youth unexposed to the ways of the world.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes slightly. It was unclear if he himself was overly suspicious, or if Lucius as a person was inherently a deep abyss filled with complex fabrications.
"Thank you for your good intentions, but there is no need." He decisively brushed it off with a refusal.
Things like this were not lacking in his spatial ring. In this danger-fraught world, absolutely avoiding debts of gratitude to others was the best method of self-defense.
"Alright..." Lucius slowly withdrew his hand. His phoenix eyes drooped slightly, the pink tint at the outer corners revealing a look of regret exactly like a large beast abandoned by its master, but he absolutely made no forceful moves or crossed the line.
Just as the atmosphere between the two fell into a brief silence, Evelyn’s flat, freezing voice suddenly rang out: "A magic beast is approaching."
The warning was like a knife slicing through their momentary relaxation. The atmosphere instantly grew as taut as a bowstring. Five pairs of eyes, bearing extreme vigilance, simultaneously locked onto the deep darkness of the primeval forest.
The forest rustled violently. In less than a minute, from amidst the dense foliage, a level-three Twin-Winged Phoenix-Sun magic bird tore through the wind and darted out. It carried a terrifying pressure, hovering right in mid-air. Before the distance could even close, that giant beast heavily flapped its wings. The air compressed, and countless feathers as hard as metal instantly transformed into a rain of razor-sharp arrows, tearing through space and shooting straight toward the sandy beach.
Relying on the massive volume of knowledge crammed from the library last night, Jeremy’s brain took only half a second to extract the data: This type of magic beast specialized in long-range attacks; its entire body, from its claws to its feathers, was steeped in highly toxic poison. Anyone careless enough to get their skin scratched would immediately fall into a state of full-body paralysis.
Jeremy channeled force into the tips of his toes, his agile body bending to nimbly evade a volley of feathers that plunged into the sand right beneath his heels. He warned through gritted teeth:
"This bird’s feathers are coated in a neurotoxin that causes paralysis! Absolutely do not get hit!"
"Understood~" Lucius’s response still carried his usual leisurely rhythm. He dodged to the side with an elegant posture, casting his narrow, elongated phoenix eyes toward the dark forest that was trembling as flocks of small birds scattered in panic: "But Captain, aside from this ugly bird flying in the air, it seems... there is something else approaching on the ground."
Jeremy immediately waved his hand, casting a low-tier spatial detection magic with the shortest condensation time. A faint magic screen flashed into existence.
From within the dense bushes, a massive, pitch-black boulder slowly crawled out. It was a Black Nether magic turtle.
The fatal weakness of this creature was its exceptionally tortoise-like movement speed. But in exchange, its innate ability belonged to a disgustingly potent crowd-control category: Within a five-mile radius of its territory, all living beings would be forcibly subjected to a colossal gravitational pressure, resulting in their movement speed being disastrously stripped away.
The moment the warning in his head ended, the giant Black Nether magic turtle indeed dug its claws into the ground, remaining motionless. A murky wave of energy immediately spread outward.
In the blink of an eye, Jeremy’s knees buckled. He felt as if dozens of thousand-pound boulders had suddenly crashed down onto his shoulders, suffocating his lungs. Worse still, the gravitational pressure showed no signs of stopping, continuously stacking upon itself.
He gritted his teeth, forcibly pushing back against the pressure, and swung his arm to summon his natal Holy Artifact. A pale light flashed, and the silver twin blades appeared.
Successful, but extremely forced.
Just as Lucius had complained while swimming in the sea, the space of this island suppressed magic power extremely strictly. Even though Jeremy had broken through to two stars, the amount of magic power he could channel through the Holy Artifact was merely like a drop of water in the desert.
This meant that the entire team could not use large-scale area-of-effect bombardment magic to clear the battlefield; they could only rely on pure physical stamina to fend off the monsters’ sweep.
Leon, standing right next to him, had also gauged this dismal disparity. Leon’s long legs sank a few centimeters deeper into the sand due to the pressure. Leon sneered, his tone as cold and sharp as ice: "...It seems that jellyfish-headed instructor really racked his brains and exhausted his mind to welcome us."
A magic bird controlling the sky with highly toxic long-range firepower. A magic turtle suppressing the ground with extreme gravity. These two magic beasts combined perfectly matched every word of the test’s title: [Agility reflex training bearing gravity].
How the hell could there be such a perfectly coincidental encounter on this deserted island? This was entirely a slaughterous play orchestrated by Griffin himself.
Everyone present tacitly understood that.
Evelyn’s emerald eyes maintained their ripple-less stillness, her soothing voice rising amidst the howling wind:
"Our magic power is shackled; a head-on clash is impossible. The only way out is to persevere. Perhaps only when we manage to hold out past the time limit or the threshold standard set by that instructor will the life-and-death door of this lesson officially close."
Phoenix, the guy who had been curled up in his stealthy black cloak this entire time, also rarely lifted his chin slightly, giving a faint nod in agreement with her deduction.
Overhead, the magic bird shrieked continuously, unleashing an increasingly dense barrage of highly toxic feathers. The wind-tearing feathers crisscrossed like a giant metallic rain pouring down onto the beach. Subjected to the brutal domination of muscle-tearing gravity, the reflex actions of all five people were forced to slow down dozens of times compared to normal.
Jeremy gripped his natal twin blades tightly with both hands. His thighs and calves tensed so hard that every blue vein bulged. No longer possessing abundant magic power to cast skills, he could only apply the most primitive and stamina-draining method of slaughter—swinging his blades to smash away every poisonous feather darting towards him to claim his life.
The four freaks beside him were also driven into a corner, gritting their teeth as they swung their weapons to defend themselves in desperation.
The prolonged tug-of-war battle wore down human willpower. The harsh sunlight gradually died out, returning the deserted island to a gloomy gray.
The gravitational pressure bearing down from the Black Nether magic turtle not only did not diminish but escalated fiercely. Through instances of failing to react in time, bleeding lacerations had appeared to some extent on the bodies of all five youths.
Jeremy struggled to lift the back of his hand to wipe away the smeared blood at the corner of his mouth. His shoulder joints let out dry cracking sounds; his right arm wielding the blade was now completely numb, operating solely on survival instinct like a mechanical machine.
They discovered one thing: The magic turtle and the magic bird only maintained a stereotypical state of attack—one suppressing with gravity, the other discharging feathers and fireballs; they absolutely did not launch any other lethal skills. Clearly, these monsters were mere puppets with Griffin pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Perhaps, just as Evelyn had deduced, this cruel test was born not to kill them immediately, but to torture their limits. It would not end until their bodies naturally produced an "answer" that satisfied that crazy instructor.
Seeing the breathing of his teammates around him becoming increasingly erratic and their stamina reaching the point of exhaustion, Jeremy decisively voiced a command:
"Keeping a scattered formation like this will get us pierced to death from exhaustion! Everyone, narrow the distance, stand back-to-back to defend! Four people stand at the four corners to handle defense, while the remaining one retreats to the center to regulate their breathing. We will take turns rotating positions."
"A brilliant initiative~" Amidst wheezing pants, Lucius immediately nodded in agreement.
Leon swung his pair of ring blades to chop down a few fireballs plunging from the sky, his initial cold arrogance drained away, replaced by a deep, hoarse voice thick with fatigue: "Then it’s decided. Form up. For the opening act, who will be the one to retreat into the middle to rest first?"
"Me!" Lucius, devoid of any pride, directly raised his arm high.
None of them bothered to object to his thick skin. Instantly, the other four implicitly fell back, forming a square shield, locking Lucius securely into the safe position at the core.
The reason no one objected was because they could all clearly see his condition right now. Up until this point, Lucius’s complexion had shifted along a disastrous trajectory: from pale, gradually to chalk-white, and currently, it could not hold onto even a single trace of blood.
Even though his leisurely, joking tone was still brimming with vitality, that battered, pallid appearance looked no different from a vampire that had just risen from the grave.
Even Jeremy, the one possessing the most inferior star level in the team, thanks to the original owner’s systematic physical conditioning, had pure stamina that was somewhat more enduring than Lucius. A passing glance was enough to conclude: Lucius’s magic talent might be high, but his physical foundation was precisely at the bottom of the barrel. It perfectly matched the stereotype of a sickly, fragile aristocratic dandy accustomed only to enjoying a life of ease.
Leon gritted his teeth, controlling the Crescent Blades to trace defensive arcs of light. Despite being busy fending off firepower, he still didn’t forget to casually spit out a viciously sarcastic remark:
"Being a man, yet your body is this flimsy and mushy. If you’re weak, then roll out to the training grounds and practice more, because with this dying gasping style, you’ll croak early on the battlefield, and no ghost will have the free time to collect your corpse."
Facing that thorny mockery, Lucius slowly pulled out a thick, gold-threaded woven carpet from his spatial ring. He unhurriedly laid the carpet out to cover the dirty sand before elegantly sitting down cross-legged.
Having fully stabilized his posture, Lucius then narrowed his eyes, the corner of his lips curling into a nonchalant yet cruel smile:
"Leon, did you accidentally chug some poison? Puking out those few lines of garbage, does it help your tragic life salvage any sense of superior smugness?"
"Why don’t you take a look at yourself?"
Leon’s hoarse, thoroughly sarcastic voice rang out, trailed by a series of harsh metallic clashing sounds.