220: Training camp and second ranking

Indeed, the one who took second place wasn't an original member of the School Team, but Lin Heng, from the same year as Xu Yan.

The opponent didn't even use the White Tiger summoned during the School Team selection, relying solely on the Empty Mirror Fox that had appeared then.

This Empty Mirror Fox, which had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Profound Nether Ice Phoenix during the selection, appeared before the School Team once more as a powerful spirit beast at the late Monarch Rank, having comprehended Domain Stage 2 and progressed quite far within it.

With its dual special attributes of Space and Spirit, plus its innate Mirror Power, if Xu Yan's Xuan You represented the pinnacle of defense and suppression, then this Empty Mirror Fox represented the pinnacle of evasion and control.

Spatial Shuttle, Spiritual Interference, Illusion Guidance, Mirror Refraction, Mirror Image Clone...

Despite being a spirit beast that, like Xuan You, was not adept at attacking, it had developed its attributes and racial traits to the extreme, playing its opponents like fiddles; after a battle, the opponent would be covered in wounds while the Empty Mirror Fox remained pristine.

Furthermore, unlike Xuan You, which relied on its powerful suppression to compensate for its lack of offensive power, the Empty Mirror Fox's spatial attribute allowed it to bypass shields and armor entirely to strike at the weakest point.

The damage wasn't high, but it was all true damage; no matter how strong the defense, if one couldn't hit the opponent, they were merely a target to be slowly worn down. This was the case for the former School Team No. 2 Zhao Zhen's Fu Yue Kui Niu, which possessed a powerful defense second only to Xuan You, only to have its "HP bar" slowly chipped away.

The frustration of that process was no less than those facing Xuan You's massive iron shell—exhausting all means without even breaking through its two layers of shields, only to be suppressed in the end.

Ultimately, the Empty Mirror Fox, with its near-invincible evasion and control, encountered Xuan You, whose resistances were maxed out.

Then, spatial power could not penetrate the shields, spiritual illusions were forcibly resisted, and the landing points of Spatial Shuttles were seen through; neither its attacks nor its evasions had any effect, and it was ultimately suppressed under the Black Tortoise Seal without the slightest power to resist.

The battle ended so quickly that the other team members who had been "played" by the Empty Mirror Fox began to suspect some sort of shady deal between the two, accusing them of fixing the match right in front of them without even trying to hide it.

The reason for this situation was simple: aside from the Mirror Power inherent to its race, Xuan You had experienced almost everything the Empty Mirror Fox could do as the team's best "test target," and most of what it had faced were enhanced versions.

Whether it was Zhu Yan's spatial tactics bolstered by the Shadowlight Realm and Return to Dust, or Xiong Nian's Close-quarters Illusory Combat with the dual stacking of battle intent and spiritual breakthrough—after fighting such unreasonable cheaters so many times, it naturally gained understanding and learned counter-measures.

Having grown accustomed to high-intensity pressure, the "normal" attacks used by the Empty Mirror Fox were nothing more than child's play to Xuan You.

After the Ranking Match concluded, everyone began intensive training under the arrangements of the Coaching Team.

The content of the intensive training wasn't particularly novel; it was nothing more than patching up weaknesses, increasing combat power, and improving team chemistry and cooperation.

As the Third Academy, which held the Cultivation Department as its ace, it now fully demonstrated its profound heritage and network of connections.

Spirit beasts, either from top-tier races or possessing strange traits and skills, appeared one after another in the Training Secret Realm to serve as sparring partners, showing their power and divinity to the team members.

Moreover, the spirit beasts entering the secret realm weren't just random ones sent by their tribes; if the second generation of Mythical beings from top tribes couldn't be invited, they settled for the second generation of Holy Spirits, or for non-top tribes, they found those at the Monarch Rank who had developed their divine traits most deeply.

These powerful or divine opponents truly gave everyone a hard time at the start of the training due to the information gap.

Even students from the Cultivation Department like Xu Yan and Cheng Ye couldn't possibly remember every spirit beast and its peculiarities.

Besides, even with the corresponding data and knowledge, there was still a difference between written descriptions and reality; spirit beasts wouldn't develop and grow exactly according to what was written in books.

Xu Yan realized this more deeply after several instances where he thought he understood his opponent's information and took so-called countermeasures, only to be exploited by the opponent and find himself in a more difficult position.

Relying on the powerful strength of his spirit beasts and the "cheat tool" Wu Xiang to look up information at any time, although the first few matches were a bit difficult, he ultimately succeeded in defeating his opponents; as he gradually adapted to this training method, Xu Yan and his spirit beasts became more like fish in water.

As for the other School Team members, after their initial failures, they also quickly adapted and grew, with their battle results shifting from losing more than winning to only losing an occasional round or two.

It was hard to say if everyone's strength had improved after all the fighting, but their mindset and their reactions to various emergencies and strange opponents, traits, and skills had improved significantly.

Now, as long as they didn't encounter something particularly outrageous, when they met unknown skills or traits, they could at least use their own observation and perception to roughly guess some information and respond, minimizing the impact of the unknown, even if they couldn't fully analyze the patterns.

After being baptized by the sparring partners brought in by the Coaching Team, the Ranking Match began again, still in the same 1v1 format.

This time, Xu Yan did not send out Xuan You, choosing instead to let Xiong Nian handle the entire Ranking Match.

Xiong Nian, at Monarch Rank 7 and Domain Stage 2, clearly didn't have the overwhelming combat power that Xuan You possessed.

Furthermore, compared to the first match, Cheng Ye, Chen Ling, and the others, who had been somewhat restrained and secretive, were clearly much more open in the second match, which meant Xu Yan's record in the second Ranking Match wasn't as impressive as before.

First, when facing the Profound Nether Ice Phoenix, he forcibly traded with the opponent at the cost of being heavily injured, but then the opponent directly displayed an ability not used in the previous round—Nirvana; a fully restored and even stronger Profound Nether Ice Phoenix facing a heavily injured Xiong Nian naturally led to an obvious result.

Although he used his battle intent and spiritual power to control his body, pulling himself back from a "certain death" state several times, he eventually collapsed on the arena after bringing the opponent down to about "half health."

Then, when facing the Scarlet Flame Qilin, the opponent also revealed a special ability not used in the previous round—the Power of Renrui; Ren, which reduced battle intent and halted conflict, directly countering Xiong Nian's combat and battle intent, while Rui, which dispelled calamities and made wishes come true, countering various spiritual attribute effects of Xiong Nian.

With both sides at similar levels, a heavily countered Xiong Nian naturally lost that battle in the end.

Aside from these two battles, Xu Yan won all the remaining seven matches.