At the last second, Mark created a small ice shield to protect his chest, deflecting Clay's sudden weakened cut. Although Mark would have lost if the attack had been full-powered, it seemed fate was on his side.

Mark quickly drew out his sword and slashed towards Clay's head. However, a powerful green shield protected Clay's head from the attack. The green crystal on the necklace hanging around Clay's neck glowed, indicating that the substitution magic tool was activated.

[You have exited ??? state]

A system window appeared for Clay.

Afterward, Clay fainted and collapsed on the ground, blood seeping from his body. Suddenly, a green glow emanated from the necklace and surrounded Clay, slowly healing his fatal injuries on his waist.

"The winner is Mark Atlas!" announced Amanda.

The audience erupted into applause.

"Amazing!"

"That Crest guy did pretty well!"

Mark stared at Clay's body before shifting his eyes to the front where the audience sat. He slowly walked away while tightly clenching his fists, his thoughts unknown.

Amanda used her water waves to lift the unconscious Clay and placed him beside the standby healers. Amanda studied Clay's body for a moment before turning her gaze back to the students.

Although Amanda and the other students didn't see Clay's cold, emotionless eyes because his back was towards them, Amanda sensed a changing aura emanating from him, which she guessed must be some sort of skill.

"What kind of abnormal skill was that?" she wondered.

"Pity, if only he had higher talent," she thought before looking at the injured Mark. She created drops of green water and sent them towards him, intending to heal his wounds.

However, Mark shook the drops of green water away from him and sat at the far back of the audience seats, muttering something under his breath. Amanda sensed that his pride must be broken, but she continued the matches, "Next round!"

***

Clay sprang open his eyes, but before he could process what had happened, a destructive snowstorm engulfed his entire body. He felt the wind howling around him, whipping the snow into his face and stinging his skin like a swarm of angry bees.

"AHHH!" he screamed in pain and closed his eyes tightly, feeling as though small knives were scratching his body. He quickly put both of his arms forward to block some of the snow from hitting his face, but it was no use. The snow was everywhere, seeping through his clothes and chilling him to the bone.

"THIS IS THE WORST TIMING EVER!" he shouted, but regretted it as snow went into his mouth, tasting like ice-cold needles.

Cough, cough.

He coughed the snow out of his throat, feeling the cold, wet crystals melting on his tongue. He had just survived a life-and-death battle and was heavily injured in his waist and right shoulder. The pain was a dull ache that spread throughout his body, but it was nothing compared to the freezing cold that seemed to seep into his very bones.

He blinked his eyes and tried to remember the recent events that had transpired, but his recent memories were hazy and blurred. It took him quite a while to process everything, but he couldn't shake the feeling of being lost in a blinding snowstorm.

"What happened to me?" he thought, getting small glimpses of himself in his memories, but it wasn't him at the same time. He felt cold, distant, and emotionless, a huge difference from his current self.

"Hmm?" Clay suddenly felt that the snowstorm was slowing down, and before he knew it, it was already calm. He took a deep breath of the frigid air, feeling the snow crunch beneath his feet as he began to move forward. ''That's abnormal...''

He looked around the same snowy-plain area, and nothing has changed, except the bright white light in the distance. He lied down on the snow, while trying to organize his memories that was quite blurry for him.

Clay was left confused and angry after hearing something unexpected from Mark. His emotions were a jumble of negativity that he couldn't control. The reason for his agitation was that Mark had revealed that Clay's ex-girlfriend, Beatrice, was now seeing him.

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Clay's hand trembled as he clutched his chest, his heart pounding in his chest. He squeezed his hand so tightly that he felt a sharp pain, but he ignored it, his mind consumed with a different kind of pain.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Maybe Mark was lying. Maybe he was just trying to get under Clay's skin. Beatrice would never date someone like Mark.

But deep down, Clay knew that wasn't true. He had a feeling, a gut instinct that he couldn't ignore. He had been in denial, he caged it, refusing to believe that he had been betrayed.

''Haha.. HAHAHA!'' Clay crazily laughed out loudy, his tears were streaming down from his eyes, painting the snow wetter with his fallen tears.

''I'm dumb, I'm stupid...'' He muttered. ''Fuck, fuck. fuck..'' He cursed loudly. He isn't the type of guy to curse, but the situation called for it.

He got used! He fucking got used for his intelliegence, and where the heck did his IQ go when he fell in love, down back to your typical densed idiot?

After cursing for who knows how many times, he never bothed counting it. He started feeling a bit calmer, the uknown and unstable emotions in him slowly cooled down.

Now that he gotten a clearer mind, he wondered what happened. The 'he' in his hazy memories weren't exactly him, he felt nothing from those memories compared to other happy or heartbreaking memories that he had. That 'he' and him are the same, but everything else felt alien to him, like someone made purely of ice. There was also that unfamillar skill he used that he never heard or seen, is it something unique to that colder Clay. On top of all that, when he was pierced he didn't any pain, something like that required an high level of pain tolerance. At the end he saw an blurry system window appearing before he collapsed.

[You have exited ??? state]

What is ???....

Clay felt like he knew how to find the answers to these questionq, but the one who will answer his questions will be... He glanced at the bright white light in the distance in his lucid dream. But then his vision changed, he blinked eyes again and found the warmth around his body, he saw an white ceiling. ''I'm back...'' He muttered.

Looking around, he saw that he was lying on a hospital bed in the infirmary, surrounded by white curtains. As he slowly sat up, the quilt fell off, revealing that he was wearing a hospital gown and that his right shoulder and waist were bandaged. It was unbelievable that the healers at the academy could treat this kind of injury.

"Haaa..." He sighed heavily.

He moved his waist and the bandaged left-shoulder a bit. "Good to go..." He felt slightly uncomfortable while moving, but it seemed like the healers did a good job.

Glancing at the clock on his watch, he saw that it was around half past seven in the evening. He could see that there were no lessons scheduled after the combat class in the schedule app.

It seems that their teacher didn't schedule any lessons after the battles, maybe because she predicted that many may fall unconscious after fighting all-out during the matches.

"–Shing, That guy is insane!"

Clay suddenly heard his infirmary neighbor watching a video of someone fighting. A little intrigued, Clay slowly stood up and walked outside the curtains, revealing the white hallway.

"Erika, I'm betting all on this guy! –Shang"

He looked to the left where the source of the sound was coming from. It was covered by white curtains, so he peeked his finger through and saw a black-haired boy watching something on his holographic tablet.

It was the face he was familiar with, one with black hair and black eyes.

Weng Xiao.

Weng Xiao felt someone looking at him and looked up from the tablet, meeting Clay's sea-blue eyes through the small gap in the curtains.

Clay froze for a moment meeting the pair of black eyes. "Hey..." Clay meekly greeted when he was exposed. 'His senses are sharp!' He thought.

He walked through the curtains and spoke. "Sorry about that... I just got intrigued about what you were watching."

''Oh, you mean this.'' Weng Xiao flipped the tablet and showed it to Clay. It was a video replaying a familiar battle stage with two familiar-looking teenagers.

Clay went closer to take a closer look. ''Huh, isn't that William and Lucas.'' He spoke with a surprised look. The top 5 students were already battling it out.

Weng Xiao nodded his head and looked at Clay and asked. ''Yep, it's a replay I got from my friend who recorded almost all the matches for me... your name is Clay Crest, right?''

''Yeah... How do you know?'' Flustered, he asked.

''Come on, that fight was awesome, you almost won over that pushy bastard! That sword skill you used was also sick, I never seen anything like that before.'' He gave him a thumbs-up.

"Ahh..." Clay scratched his head a little, he must have seen his performance through the replayed videos. "Thank you, I guess?" For some reason, the Weng Xiao in front of him seemed friendlier than the one he saw at the battle.

''Oh, now it's the final showdown!'' Weng exclaimed, getting Clay's attention back to the tablet.

[William charged forward with his longsword, its sharp blade crackling with sparks of lightning as he prepared to strike at Lucas. But his opponent was quick to react, parrying the blow with his own longsword.

Undeterred, Lucas infused his sword with fiery energy and called out, "Stop playing around!"

William hesitated for a moment before nodding solemnly. He watched as Lucas bathed in a blazing red light, his sword poised for the next move. William lifted his sword high above his head and muttered an incantation under his breath. His words echoed magically through the air.

""

In an instant, the sword glowed with a fierce yellow light, crackling with raw energy. William brought it down in a swift slash towards Lucas, sending a serpent-like bolt of lightning hurtling towards him.

Lucas snapped out of his fear-induced stupor and summoned several defensive skills in rapid succession, creating two fiery shields to protect himself. But his efforts were in vain. The lightning strike shattered the shields into tiny pieces, its snake-like form twisting and turning as it raced towards Lucas.

Desperate, Lucas conjured a green protective shield, but it only lasted for a few seconds before crumbling into dust. Suddenly, a wall of water appeared in front of him, dispelling the lightning strike and shielding him from harm.

As Amanda announced, "Winner is William Aonsworth!" the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.]

Clay and Xiao Weng stood in awe, their eyes wide with amazement at the breathtaking display of power and skill. If only they could have witnessed the battle in person.