How did he do it?
Could he actually control inanimate objects?
Elara had pulled back to avoid being hit by the blood needles, but even at this distance, she was still manipulated.
The platinum-white energy orb glowed before her eyes, its terrifying energy fluctuations seeming ready to devour her completely in the next instant!
Elara was forced to clamp her eyes shut by the blinding golden light. Everything happened too fast; she had no time to react at all.
Just a moment ago, she had been confidently convinced that, as the legitimate daughter of a prominent family, other S-rank students were not worthy to be compared with her.
Yet now, she was so utterly outmatched by Kylen!
"Avelia!"
In the end, the void energy orb did not explode. Instead, it hovered in front of Elara.
"It seems the winner and loser have been decided, Elara," Seraphina said, looking at the two in the arena with surprise.
She had expected Kylen to win, but never imagined the gap would be so vast!
And… was that really Kylen's talent? Wasn't Kylen's talent blood-based, only able to influence and control some contracted creatures?
No—that was Avelia's ability!
Kylen was using words and actions to confuse his opponent; the actual controller was Avelia.
But… the distance Elara had pulled back was a full hundred meters. Could a Vampiric Slime's ability be that powerful?
Although Avelia was famous, her identity as an Origin Sequence had always been well-hidden.
Only a handful of people in the entire academy—like Principal Orion—knew her true background.
Elara and the two-headed griffin landed back on the ground, their expressions gloomy.
The others exchanged glances.
"Hey, what… what just happened? Liam, did you see clearly?"
Liam shook his head. "Not at all! What exactly is Kylen's talent?"
Chloe whispered, "Elara is also an outstanding genius in her family. She even ranked among the top 50 new talents in the Arcana Empire's potential list in an internal test. How could she lose so completely?"
Isabella thought for a moment and said, "It's not that Elara is too weak, it's that Kylen is too strong! If you don't have intelligence on his ability, he'll completely suppress you!"
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Kylen walked up to Elara and asked softly, "Are you okay?"
Elara was still in a state of shock, her mind in a daze. It took her a long time to react.
"What… what exactly is your ability?"
Kylen pressed a finger to his lips. "That's a secret, Elara. Once my ability is revealed, its effectiveness will be greatly reduced."
When Kylen had discussed battle strategies with Avelia, he had realized that both his Crimson Temptation and Primordial Blood Pact had a powerful "first-strike advantage."
Combined with Avelia's Blood Coagulation Control, they could easily disrupt the opponent's judgment of Kylen's abilities.
Just now, when Elara used Void Condensation Explosion, Avelia had infused a small amount of blood into the void energy orb, allowing her to control it.
And the two-headed griffin itself was about a hundred meters away from Avelia, well within the range of Blood Coagulation Control.
Kylen had deliberately used words and actions to distract Elara's judgment. Except for Seraphina, no one in the audience had noticed that Avelia had done all this alone.
A bold thought crossed Seraphina's mind. She was immediately shocked by her own speculation.
If everything just now had been done by Avelia, her performance had far exceeded the capabilities of a Vampiric Slime.
Sequence rankings were absolute! A lower-tier Vampiric Slime (Sequence No. 99) could never dominate a higher-tier two-headed griffin (Sequence No. 63).
Brief control might be possible, but Avelia's ability to manipulate blood had clearly reached the level of "dominance."
This was suppression from a higher-tier sequence! Could it be that…
Seraphina shook her head. Impossible.
She clapped her hands. "A wonderful duel! Elara, your strength is also excellent. But remember when facing an opponent like Kylen, whose talent is unknown and extremely threatening, you should prioritize gathering intelligence first, not rushing into battle."
Then she turned to Kylen. "As for you… Kylen, you don't seem like a new student at all. Your combat instincts are amazing."
Kylen raised an eyebrow. Had Seraphina figured it out?
"You flatter me, Mentor," he said.
Seraphina smiled. "In that case, Kylen will be the team leader."
The others walked over and said, "No objections."
"Leader, you're so strong. Can't you reveal just a little bit of your talent?"
Kylen shook his head with a smile.
Are you kidding? If you knew all my secrets, you'd figure out how to counter me!
Elara also recovered her composure.
"Yes, Mentor is right. Kylen… thank you… for holding back."
Although she was reluctant to admit it, Kylen was far stronger than her; she didn't even know how she had lost!
Kylen said, "Don't worry about it. We're teammates now."
"Mentor, earlier, you mentioned benefits for the team leader. What are they?"
Seraphina chuckled. How practical he was!
"The benefit is that you'll get an extra 20 credits every month. Also, after winning the qualifying round and the team battle in the main exchange tournament, the team leader will receive additional rewards."
"What?"
On hearing this, the others immediately regretted it.
"Wow, Mentor, why didn't you say that earlier? If we'd known, we would have tried too!"
"Yeah! If we'd fought Kylen in turns, we might have had a chance!"
Seraphina laughed. "Enough. Opportunities are for those who seize them! Your credits for the first month have probably been credited to your accounts by now."
"In the academy, you need credits for almost everything, including meals. If you have extra credits, you can go to the Logistics Office."
Seraphina said mysteriously, "The path to becoming stronger isn't just through cultivating contracted creatures and talent potions. There are also Abyssal Armaments made from materials collected from abyssal rifts."
"Elara, regarding that energy orb Kylen turned against you… You should have Abyssal Armaments that can resist it, right?"
Elara lowered her head and nodded. "I thought it would be unfair to Kylen, so I didn't use them."
Kylen looked at her in surprise. No wonder.
He had thought that, as someone from a Contractor family, Elara would definitely have treasures beyond his understanding. This girl actually had a strong sense of honor.
Seraphina said, "Well, the mentors at the Logistics Office are more professional about Arcane Armaments than I am. You can go consult them."
"For those who need to feed their contracted creatures with blood-based food, you can go to the academy cafeteria. They sell dishes made from abyssal beast meat there."
"Today's session ends here. Everyone, make good use of your time to train. Since time is tight, the qualifying round will start in three days."
Everyone nodded and left in groups. Seraphina headed straight for the principal's office. She wanted to get answers from the principal about her speculation regarding Avelia.
Outside the training ground, Liam suggested, "Our credits are probably in our accounts now. Should we go check out the Logistics Office?"
Victor said, "Do you have extra credits? Didn't you hear the mentor say we need credits for meals? Everyone, does anyone know how much the beast meat in the cafeteria costs?"
Chloe sighed and shook her head. "You boys are so careless. I went to check yesterday. The cafeteria charges by the grade of the beast meat.
Lower-tier sequence beast meat and demon plant essence cost 0.01 credits per kilogram, middle-tier costs 1 credit, and higher-tier costs 10 credits!"
"That's so expensive… 1 credit is 1 million Imperial Coins, so even lower-tier beast meat is equivalent to 10,000 coins?"
"Yeah, it's only slightly cheaper than the market price."
Selene frowned. "Contracted creatures have a limited daily food intake. If you want to speed up their advancement, you definitely need to buy higher-tier sequence beast meat.
Lower-ranked ones barely help with improvement. I'm afraid I won't have extra credits to buy Arcane Armaments."
Kylen smiled slightly. See? This was the trouble ordinary Contractors faced.
He didn't need to worry about that; he just had to take good care of Avelia.
In the end, only Kylen and Elara decided to go to the Logistics Office. The other five chose to go to the cafeteria.
The atmosphere was a bit awkward on the way.
Finally, Elara took the initiative to walk up to Kylen, held his hand, and said, "Kylen, can you tell me? How exactly did I lose? I can exchange it for credits! I promise I'll never tell anyone, I swear."