FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 4: The Special Competition (1)**

Time flew by. A month passed quickly.During that month, Chen Yi spent every day in the library, constantly exploring the possibility of discovering new spells.The spells Chen Yi had originally mastered were like points inside a circle. To discover new magic, all he could do was keep searching along the circle's edge.The sudden appearance of Thunderstrike was like adding a new point far outside the original circle. Now he could explore new mana guidance methods around that new point.Magic was ranked by power into two tiers: "Shock" and "Wondrous." Each tier was further divided into low, medium, and high levels. Thunderstrike was the highest of the high—an advanced Wondrous-rank spell.That said, many believed magic had even higher power levels, but those were realms only gods could master—far beyond mortal reach.In truth, the higher the rank of magic, the harder it was to discover on your own.Headmaster Morin, in the nearly twenty years since his last Divine Communion, had only managed to discover a handful of new spells on his own. Most of them weren't very useful.During this month, Chen Yi fell into the trap of trying to bite off more than he could chew. The sudden arrival of Thunderstrike had thrilled him. Afraid of wasting this fleeting opportunity, he greedily tried to explore in every possible magical direction.The results were, of course, disappointing. He'd gained absolutely nothing in the entire month.Beyond exploring magic, Chen Yi also spent the month living in anxiety.Based on others' experiences, Divine Communion had no fixed cycle. The intervals between communions could be as short as a few months or as long as several years. Usually, it continued on and off until the person died.Now Chen Yi worried whether the goddess on the cross would come to him again. If she did, would she teach him more magic, or would she make some demand?After all, she was so different from ordinary gods.What Chen Yi wanted most, of course, was for the goddess to explain the situation to him in his ignorance.Ignorance wasn't the worst thing. Knowing just a little—and being left hanging—was what truly drove a person mad.During this time, Chen Yi kept searching for his lost spellbook by every possible means. Even though he now knew high-level magic, he didn't want the fruits of eight years of research to go completely to waste.Unfortunately, the heavens didn't smile on him. He searched every place he could have possibly passed through, but the vanished spellbook remained nowhere to be found.---On the day of the Special Competition, all the trainees of his year who had signed up traveled by carriage to the competition site, led by a few professors. Their destination: the White Sand Rainforest.This area, located in the lower reaches of the Divine Radiance River—which cut through the continent from north to south—was a dense rainforest teeming with countless monsters and poisonous creatures.Though harsh for survival, it was also an excellent place for mages to collect magical materials like magic cores.The most peculiar thing about the White Sand Rainforest was that it wasn't covered in ordinary soil, but in granular white sand—the same composition as common desert sand.Plants should have struggled to grow in such soil, yet the rainforest was lush with plant life.Some researchers believed that this anomaly occurred because the white sand in the region was rich in mana.Since the area lay at the southern end of the Divine Radiance River, they speculated it might be one of the ancient battlegrounds of the God-Demon War.The God-Demon War—an ancient event mentioned in the very first chapter of the scriptures promulgated by the High God Church—was another reason, besides teaching magic, why mortals worshipped the gods.About ten thousand years ago, a race called the Demons invaded the continent of Alpha.They wielded something called "technology"—a power fundamentally different from magic.Magic manipulated mana. Technology manipulated energy.What made technology terrifying was not just that energy was as omnipresent as mana, but that *all* non-magical flames contained energy. This meant that anyone could potentially harness energy.Technology—magic that talentless people could master—that was its true terror.The mortals of the continent stood no chance against the Demon race.At the critical moment of humanity's survival, the gods appeared. Using dazzling magic, they waged war against the various mysterious technological constructs of the Demons. The two sides' battle lines formed along what is now the Divine Radiance River.And the Divine Radiance River itself was a product of that war.Legend had it that an unknown great god had used powerful water magic to sweep away the Demon army, carving out the river in the process.Because the river was an unmistakable divine miracle, and in honor of the gods who helped humanity fight the Demons, it was named the Divine Radiance River.But there was an obvious hole in this theory. Research had shown that the White Sand Rainforest had only gradually formed over the past hundred years.The God-Demon War had taken place ten thousand years ago. The two should have no necessary connection.---"Ahem. A total of 123 trainees are participating in this year's Special Competition, uh... divided into 35 squads. Please come to me in an orderly fashion to collect your protective robes and maps."After they arrived, Professor Tress, the Healing professor leading the group, announced in a clear voice."Haha, so some people are just unpopular." A blonde woman laughed loudly, causing the three men behind her to exchange awkward glances.Those three men were, of course, Chen Yi, Carl, and Phil.The blonde woman was Phil's twin sister, an advanced trainee specializing in Elemental magic—Liv.From the numbers of participants and squads, it wasn't hard to see that quite a few squads hadn't been able to fill all four slots.But Liv, with her terrible personality, didn't seem to realize that she herself was clearly among the "unpopular" types.Chen Yi and the others lined up to collect their robes. During the process, Senior Professor Tress couldn't resist using an Amplify spell to drone on once again about the competition rules and safety precautions."Everyone must wear the standardized protective robe during the competition. Voluntarily removing your robe during combat will be considered forfeiting the match. When the protective enchantment on the robe drops to half durability, the robe will turn red—meaning the contestant has been defeated and eliminated.""Eliminated contestants must not cast any spells that could interfere with the competition's outcome, and must return here on their own. My psi spell is attached to each robe. I will know exactly who turned red first and who turned red later, so don't get any ideas.""Do not attack contestants whose robes have already turned red. Not that I think any of you kids could actually punch through the robes I made. But since Headmaster Morin asked me to emphasize this, I'm emphasizing it."Because he'd decided to follow the goddess's instruction, Chen Yi had kept the matter of his Divine Communion and acquiring Thunderstrike a secret.So for the past month, he hadn't cast that powerful spell again. He wasn't confident he could control its power.Professor Tress had declared that "no one could actually punch through his robes." But if Tress knew Chen Yi could cast Thunderstrike, he might change his mind.So Chen Yi secretly decided not to use Thunderstrike in this Special Competition.Even if he cast it subtly enough that others might mistake it for a natural phenomenon—thus keeping his Divine Communion a secret—he didn't want to electrocute his fellow students just for a ranking in an intramural competition.