FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 4: The Special Competition (6)**

Although the spells Chen Yi had mastered weren't high-level, he had read widely and had some understanding of the effects and characteristics of most known spells on the continent.But as far as he knew, no magic could achieve the miraculous effects of this magic armor—resisting both elemental and physical damage, exceptionally strong protection, highly flexible, and from what he could tell so far, with impressive duration.Chen Yi began to suspect that the goddess hadn't taught him a single spell, but a complete protective spell sequence.A spell sequence was when a mage combined several spells they had mastered and cast them in a certain order or upon certain triggers.The advantage was that multiple spells could be cast at once.The disadvantage was obvious: with a fixed arrangement, on-the-fly adaptability was worse than casting spells individually.So a poorly designed sequence could end up harming the caster.In the Magic Tournament a month ago, Connie had used a protective spell sequence to defeat Chen Yi—she had added a physical attack reflection spell inside her protective barrier.Thinking of this, Chen Yi frowned. Even if he picked several spells from among all the ones he knew and arranged them into a sequence, none could achieve this effect.Moreover, to realize such powerful functionality, the spell sequence written in a spellbook would be terribly long—probably half a book.What Chen Yi didn't know was that the "Tiya's Beginner Sequence Liner" he had learned was a protective spell sequence Tiya had developed herself as a student.It cleverly integrated powerful Healing spells Chen Yi had never heard of—such as Raddlelow's Physical Barrier, Kate's Magic Shield, Bittie's Lightness, and Ubiquitous Self-Healing—while greatly reducing casting time and difficulty by merging and simplifying mana flow.Thanks to this spell sequence, Tiya had won that year's "Best Innovation Award" at Chaos Academy.After that, her reputation as the "Chosen One" spread far and wide.Having learned another powerful spell, Chen Yi still felt somewhat unreal. But he also discerned some logic behind the goddess's choice of spells to teach him.First, she taught him Thunderstrike—a spell he was likely to recognize—to build trust.At the same time, Thunderstrike was easy to disguise as a natural phenomenon. For a goddess who needed to keep secrets, it both helped Chen Yi grow stronger and wouldn't expose her identity if he tried to cast it.Then, with the second Divine Communion, she unreservedly taught him a powerful protective spell.Though highly effective, this spell was very low-key, allowing him to stay alive without revealing the secret of his Divine Communion.So far, aside from asking him to keep it secret, the goddess had asked nothing of Chen Yi.How could such a wise and kind goddess be the "witch" the white-robed men spoke of? Slander. Pure slander! Chen Yi thought.With that, he quickly recorded in his spellbook the pattern from the goddess's left leg during the communion.She had risked so much to transmit that pattern—there had to be a reason! Perhaps if he cracked its secret, he would know what the goddess truly wanted him to do.But there was another very strange point that bothered Chen Yi: the goddess could have transmitted information in far more efficient and less costly ways. So why didn't she?The obvious answer was that the white-robed men prevented her from speaking openly about her request. But she could have used a Psionic spell—Telepathy—to secretly tell him.Chen Yi had noticed that the goddess wore no magic rings. But he felt that with her power, she should have been able to cast a basic spell like Telepathy without rings.Even if some mechanism in the cell suppressed her mana so she couldn't use Telepathy, there was an even simpler way to convey information.Since the white-robed men had no idea Chen Yi existed, the goddess could have pretended to protest to them, thereby relaying information to him.For example: "Even if you lock me in [some place], I will never hand over [something] to you."That would reveal everything—her identity, the location, the reason for her imprisonment.Chen Yi believed that with proper wording, she could have fooled the white-robed men and communicated more efficiently, without resorting to such brutal self-harm.Chen Yi shook his head, feeling self-deprecating. *If you can think of it, the goddess certainly could. She must have had some other difficulty, forced to take this desperate measure.*Having learned two powerful spells for free made Chen Yi uneasy. He was eager to do something to repay the goddess.Of course, what he wanted most was to rescue her from that cruel imprisonment.---The next day, as the first rays of dawn split the dark sky in two, the four continued on their way. Before long, they encountered several classmates still setting up camp.With Liv's jeering cry of "Time to wake up!" the battle began.Chen Yi and his team quickly realized the opposing squad had only three members. With their increasingly harmonious coordination, they crushed the opponent effortlessly.After the victory, Chen Yi noticed that the classmates hadn't left their tents up out of laziness. One of their teammates had experienced Divine Communion overnight and was still lying in his tent, unable to fight.The other three had no choice but to guard him, hoping to outlast the Special Competition. Unfortunately for them, they ran into Chen Yi's squad and were eliminated.Chen Yi recognized these four. They were quite strong—otherwise they wouldn't have made it to the second day. If all four had been in peak condition, Chen Yi figured his squad would have won only after a hard fight.But because of this sudden Divine Communion, they had won easily.Four against three wasn't exactly honorable, but luck was part of strength. The eliminated team could only chalk it up to bad luck.As darkness gradually closed in from both sides of the sky, Chen Yi and his squad encountered only a few mindless native monsters, no more classmates.These monsters were small, unintelligent, and couldn't cast magic. They were quickly dispatched.Unfortunately, the monsters were too weak to drop magic cores. Their only use was to let the squad practice their coordination and get used to their new staves.Thus, the second day of the Special Competition passed safely with no casualties.